


Durin's Day Eve

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Durin Family, Dwarf Culture, F/M, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Pre-Quest, fun times in ered luin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-28 00:58:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 65,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/668446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The exiles of Erebor eventually settled in the Blue Mountains after many years of wandering. This is the story of friendships and romances among the Dwarves who would go on to reclaim the Lonely Mountain, when they were all very young, leading up to an unforgettable Durin's Day Eve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no profit from this story. The Khuzdul I quoted comes from the dwarrow-scholar on Wordpress.
> 
> This is a story that, surprisingly for me, is NOT based on a prompt from the kink meme (so it might be total rubbish). It all came from my own head and my desire to spend more time with the Dwarves when they were in the Blue Mountains. I know some of you folks out there have expressed an interest in reading more about my take on the characters during this period and I was just itching to write about them. Most of my mythology/world-building will pull from from various sources: mostly Tolkien, fan speculation and some sprinklings of Norse/Celtic/Jewish cultural practices to keep things interesting. 
> 
> My headcanon is not necessarily anyone else's headcanon (diversity! the joy of fandom!), so if there are things in here that make you double-take, feel free to comment and I'm always happy to discuss Dwarf culture with other interested parties. Conversely, if you happen to like this, feel free to drop me a line. This one is a bit of a vanity project for me, but I like to know that people are enjoying what I do with these characters.

The miners blinked in the late afternoon sun, blinding to their eyes that were accustomed to darkness. One might assume that such an occupation with hours spent underground squinting at rocks looking for a vein of iron could wreak havoc on an individual’s good spirits, but such a person likely has not had much experience with Dwarves. To a Dwarrow-miner a glint of ore in the bowels of the earth was as nourishing as sunlight, for they were a race most comfortable surrounded by stone, miles from the sight of the sky. Especially when they shared their toil among friends.

Bofur, Bombur and Víli were such Dwarves. They finished up their day’s work and made for the village, mattocks over their shoulders, whistling merrily as they walked. How could they be anything but merry? It was a week from Durin’s Day which, for Dwarves of the Blue Mountains meant not only a full day’s rest from work, but all the good food, festivities and friends a soul could ask for and more. Their new year was coming early this year, when it would be warm enough from the bonfires that they could stay out all night and sleep all day, for they none of them had parents who would try to roll them out of bed for prayers and religious observance that the older folks insisted was at the heart of the festival.

For the young folk, it was a rare chance to let loose, eat too much, drink too much and live a carefree existence, even if only for a day. Life in the Blue Mountains was not easy, but this year the harvest had been good, trade had gone well and the earth yielded enough in the way of ore and gems to keep them through the winter, thanks to the blessings of the Creator. Soon they would pray (slurring their Khuzdul with thick tongues and stumbling over their words on account of pounding heads) for the next year to be as prosperous, but for the moment there was grog and company to be had to get them through the week.

“Pub?” Víli asked his companions as the smokestacks from the village became visible. Usually he and his mates sought some refreshment after work, but he usually asked in case the brothers needed to check up on their cousin. Bifur used to work in the mines, providing for the whole family when his cousins were still dwarflings, after their father died, but an old war wound prevented him taking steady work and he occasionally needed looking after.

“We might stop by the house to get Bifur, if that’s alright,” Bombur replied.

Víli waved off the reply as if it was an annoying fly. “‘Course it is! The more the merrier, I say! In that spirit, mind if I stop by the smithy to see if Dís wants to come along?”

Bofur grinned impishly and punched Víli on the arm. “Are we all bringing our sweethearts? Bombur, we’ll have to stop by the pastry cook’s on the way there.”

“She’s not my sweetheart!” Víli cried, giving Bofur a whack of his own. “And what’s the pastry cook got to do with anything? Loading up on sweet bread already?”

“It’s not the pastry cook who’s got aught to do with anything, but the pastry cook’s _daughter_ ,” Bofur replied, fluttering his eyelashes and placing a hand over his heart. “Me little brother’s in _love_.”

Bombur blushed as red as his beard. “Am not,” he muttered, about as convincing as Vili had been in his protest. “She’s a very nice lass.”

“Aye,” Bofur replied knowingly. “A nice lass with the brightest blonde beard you ever did see and the bluest blue east of the sea in her eyes - ”

“She’s got green eyes,” Bombur corrected him and immediately wished he hadn’t for Bofur laughed aloud, jumped on his brother’s back and caught him in a tight embrace around the neck.

“Spoken like a lad in love!” he declared joyfully. “Well, bless me boots, I’ve nothing to say against it. I’d be happy to call her sister, mark me. Thyra would be a welcome addition to the family, I’ll talk it over with Bifur tonight and if he’s amenable, we’ll send you off on the morrow with a chest of jewels - some might be cut glass, but it’s the thought that counts, eh? - and get you married off by Durin’s Day!”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Bombur replied, mortified, but making no effort to shake his brother off. “I’d drop dead of embarrassment if you did, you’d miss me terribly. Not a word to Bifur either, eh? _Eh?_ ”

“Not a word to Bifur either,” Bofur agreed reluctantly. It was easy to forget that he was the elder of the two since his brother, shyer and quieter by nature, seemed to have all the sense in the family most days. “Well, Víli, I wish you better luck in wooing than me wee brother here.”

Víli laughed and thanked him then waved as the brothers made for home, promising that he’d see them soon at the pub. Truth be told, Dís was not his sweetheart, nor anyone else’s. She and her folk had been living in the Blue Mountains for round about a decade now, eking out a living in craft and trade. They kept themselves to themselves for the longest time, but in recent years, they’d begun to get friendlier with the local dwarves who no longer viewed them with suspicion. Víli thought dancing around each other for so long had been daft, they were refugees of a terrible tragedy and should be looked on with compassion, not eyed warily as though they were going to steal the iron from the mountains and make off like thieves in the night. They were all Dwarves, weren’t they? One people, created in the image of Mahal and all that.

Speaking off, Mahal must be a damn fine looking being, given the singular beauty of Lady Dís. Víli was sure he never saw so fine a creature, broad strong frame, comely curves, thick black hair and charming beard - _those_ eyes were certainly the bluest blue east of the sea.

“Hello, m’lady,” he called, leaning over the counter of their stall, head balanced on his hand as he stared up at her, stars in his eyes.

“Hello yourself,” she smiled back, brushing a damp lock of hair back from her head with her sleeve. Even soot covered and sweating at the end of a long day in the forge, she was still the loveliest thing he’d ever beheld. Maybe she was especially lovely after a hot day. Certainly made her tunic cling to her form in a very appealing way. “Just come from the mines? Where are the other lads?”

“I might ask you the same question,” he replied, observing that she was quite alone at the end of the day, which was unusual. Usually her dour-faced brother and even dour-er faced cousin were milling around, glaring at him when he paid a call during business hours.

“Deliveries to be made and I have work to finish,” Dís said, nodding to the axe whose edge she was chiseling out. The metal glowed red-hot from the fire.

Víli whistled appreciatively. “Very nice work,” he admired. “I hope you’re overcharging them for it.”

Dís laughed and shook her head, “Isn’t for a paying customer, it’s my own.”

“Oh?” Víli asked, surprised. “Any wars been started I’ve not heard about?”

“No wars, it’s for Durin’s Day. I’ll be doing a sword-dance with Hervor, we’re both of age and it’s a tradition that was sore neglected by our folk for years and years. No time to properly celebrate most years, not the way you can here.”

It was a sort of an answer, he supposed, but not one that explained why Dís was taking care in carving a new weapon for herself. He’d seen the sword-dances, of course, they were traditional among young lads and lassies, but they generally only used old or damaged weapons. It wasn’t as though they were actually going to _use_ them during the dance.

“Awful trouble to go to just for a bit of show, isn’t it?” he asked. “Surely your brother’s got some swords as aren’t any use no more that’d serve just as well?”

The lass looked at him oddly, as though he was being extremely funny, but hadn’t the faintest idea he’d told a joke. “Might serve well enough for your lot, Broadbeams all - ”

“Longbeard here!” he corrected her, for he _was_ of Durin’s line...just a distant, thin thread of it was all.

“Aye, aye, but I’ve seen the way your folk dance and it’s...well, in Erebor the customs were different, I suppose.” Dís spoke of her home more easily than many of her people and Víli liked her all the more for it. She had a good way with folk and a wicked sense of humor, he did enjoy passing time with her.

“What’s the custom among your folk, then?” he asked and she smiled mysteriously and shrugged.

“You’ll have to wait ‘til Durin’s Day Eve to find out,” she smirked. “And I can’t go to the pub with you tonight, I’m off with Hervor. We’ve got to practice while there’s still light.”

“Oh? Perhaps I’ll join you, now I think on it. Where will you be?” he asked casually.

Dís was no fool and she chortled and shook her head, ducking her head to check her work. “Cheeky,” she declared. “You’ll have nothing from me on that front.”

“Nor me neither,” a rich, sweet voice sounded behind him. Víli whirled and found himself face to face with Hervor, another of the wandering folk of Erebor to settle in the Ered Luin. Widely considered the fairest maid in the West, it was no wonder. She was the epitome of dwarven beauty with her curly hair, red as flame and a particularly fine beard for so young a girl. She had a dusting of freckles over her broad, pert nose and her eyes shone like the finest of emeralds. Few were the dwarrow-lads in those parts who weren’t a little bit in love with her, but though her charms were many, Víli’s taste ran more toward maids with raven tresses who favored weapons forged by her own hands. Call him a romantic.

“Just about finished?” Hervor asked Dís, twining a lock of hair round a finger idly.

“Just about,” her friend confirmed, giving her work a final, critical look. “I’ll just close up and we can be off - ah, and there’s _your_ companions for the night, Víli.”

Bofur and Bombur were making a beeline for them Bifur on their heels. “We leave you alone a quarter of an hour and you’ve got not one, but _two_ lassies at your side,” Bofur called out, astonished. “How do you do it, lad?”  
“We won’t be at his side for long,” Hervor said primly. “Dís and I can make our own fun well away from you lads - and good evening to you, sir,” she bobbed with particular grace to Bifur. Those who came away injured from battle were particularly revered among Dwarves, especially veterans from the wars with the Orcs.

The older dwarf inclined his head to Hervor in turn and wished her good evening, “Alanjuz ghelekh.” He mimed drinking, but Hervor shook her head.

“Alas, we’ve other things to do tonight, try not to feel our absence too deeply.”

“Ha!” Víli rolled his eyes. “A few pints of Bildr’s ale and we’re liable to forget you’re _not_ with us.”

“What on earth can you be doing that’s better than a few hours in the pub with the likes of us? Braiding your beards?” Bofur asked, never keen on losing the companionship of friends if he could help it.

“Víli will explain,” Dís said, shutting their stall down for the night and disappearing momentarily behind the shutters.

“I’ll do no such thing,” he exclaimed. “M’lady Mysterious in there won’t give me a clue what you lassies are on about! What’s so special about sword dances from Erebor?”

Hervor shrugged and smiled coyly. “You’ll find out on Durin’s Day Eve,” she replied, just as evasive as Dís, who appeared a minute later with a sword in a scabbard she was fixing around her waist.

“You’re sword dancing?” Bofur asked, eyes lighting up. “That’ll be a sight! Go on, give us a show now, we’ll not tell anyone.”

“You’d think they were little dwarflings who’ve been promised a present the way they whinge and carry on,” Hervor shook her head in mock astonishment. “You’ll see for yourselves in a week’s time.” She linked arms with Dís and the two young dwarrow women walked off with cheerful smiles and waves, leaving the lads in a terrible confusion behind them.

“Reckon we should follow them?” Bofur asked Víli speculatively. His brother shot him a look of amused disbelief.

“Follow them?” Bombur asked rhetorically. “Are you daft? They’ve got swords on ‘em, they’ll hack us to pieces before we realize they’ve spied us.”

Bifur nodded his agreement with his cousin and suggested their time would be put to better use relieving the landlord of his stocks of lager, a plan to which his companions readily agreed. Despite Víli’s prior assertions to the contrary, the absence of the young ladies loomed large in their mind and they spent a good portion of the evening engaged in speculative debate over what exactly the Durin’s Day traditions of the Lonely Mountain might be. None from Erebor were about in the pub that night, so their curiosity would remain unquenched for the time being.


	2. Chapter 2

“Enough!” Hervor exclaimed, throwing her sword at Dís’s feet and raising her arms to call a halt. “Enough! I can scarce see anything and I need to catch my breath.”

Dís lay her own sword down and scrubbed her own burning eyes furiously. The soot she’d not managed to clean away though a quick scrub at the end of the day had sweat down into her eyes; she’d been in pain for the better part of the hour. Given the opportunity to rest, Dís knelt by a stream and immersed her head completely in the cold water. She resurfaced, flipping her long, sodden hair back and inadvertently spraying Hervor with water as she did so.

“Oi!” the red haired dwarrow lass cried indignantly. “I called a halt, remember? Couldn’t wait ‘til I had a drink either, can’t hardly be wholesome now the stream’s got your filth in it.”

Dís grinned at her, “I’d say I was sorry, but that would be a lie.” She wiped the water from her face with her sleeve and twisted her thick black locks to wring them out on the grass. Flopping down, she stared at the wide expanse of sky above her, royal blue with pink around the edges. They’d lost their daylight and would have to quit anyway, Hervor was quite right, but Dís was not ready to go home yet. Neither, it seemed was her sparring partner who sat beside her, plucking blades of grass and braiding them in her hands.

“Do you think it’ll come out alright? Hervor blurted out. “Only I’m worried we’re going to make fools of ourselves.”

Dís exhaled hard. “I’ve been thinking the same thing myself.”

The sword dances of Erebor were a part of their peoples’ traditions that were sadly neglected during their exile. Women did not take part in warfare under ordinary circumstances, they were too few and too precious to risk their lives on the battlefield. Those few shieldmaidens who took up arms and fought and died for their kinsfolk were the stuff of legend among Dwarrows, but there had not been a warrior woman in centuries who found a place in their songs and poetry. Even so, campaign veterans or no, dwarrow-women needed to know how to fight. It was part of their blood and their people’s history, Dwarves were battle-ready, even if they were fated never to take arms with their brothers and fight on behalf of their king and land. The sword dances, usually performed by young lassies nearing or just past the age of majority, combined the skill and fury of the warrior with the grace and rhythm of dancer creating a spectacle that was not much seen outside the Lonely Mountain. When old King Thrór was on the throne, Dwarves came from miles around to witness the dancing on Durin’s Day Eve.

It was not a tradition they shared with other races and the dancers were usually trained up by their own mothers, their hair and beards woven with threads of gold and their weapons specially made for the occasion. If one of the girls was fated to marry, her sword dance weapons were part of her trousseau and her husband would not take them up without her permission.

Both Dís and Hervor were very young when the dragon came and they only knew of the sword dances of Erebor from rare recollections of their parents and grandparents of happier days. Their Durin’s Day celebrations on the road were meager affairs, sometimes there was no honey to brush the tops of the braided sweet breads, nor meat to roast and feast upon. Their first Durin’s Day in the Blue Mountains was a revelation. Treats for the children! Piles of food and a seemingly endless supply of spirits! There were games too, and singing and dancing until daybreak. There were sword dances as well, but none that matched what they heard of whispered around campfires and saw, sporadically, years when young ladies had time to practice and perform.

This year they were both of age, though neither of them had a mother to give them instruction. Hervor’s mother died in childbed and their Queen perished only two years prior, after a long illness. Neither girl could recall whose idea it was to revive the old tradition, if they were asked, each would accuse the other of dreaming up the ridiculous notion, but then they would have to admit that it was a mutual decision. For the fact was that, as good as their lives were in the Blue Mountains, it was still not their home. Their traditions, though similar in so many ways, were not the same as those the exiles of the Lonely Mountain carried in their hearts and if there was one thing the older generation feared more than the idea that they would never see their mountain again, it was the thought that the children of Erebor would lose their memories and forget the mountain entirely.

Hervor’s father, who lost his wife to the dragon and his son in battle, was especially grieved one day when his daughter apologized for coming in late and claimed she was having a bit of craic with her friends and the time slipped away. It wasn’t a term folks from Erebor used, she’d picked it up from her friends, but it slipped so naturally off her tongue that her father looked so grieved, she thought he’d heard some terrible news. Maybe that was when the idea of a sword dance entered her head.

“What if they’re all insulted?” Hervor wondered aloud. “I keep thinking to myself, ‘Now, it’s the thought that counts, maybe they’ll be pleased we’ve tried,’ but what if they think we’re just stupid dwarflings who dishonor our ancestors, playing at traditions?”

Dís allowed a moment for the words to sink in. “'Pleased we’ve tried?'” she snorted, sitting up on her elbows and regarding Hervor doubtfully. “Have you met my brother? Trying doesn’t carry much weight with him.”

Nor should it, she reflected. Thorin drove himself hard to do his best every day and felt like a failure when the world did not bend itself in accordance with his will. She could see him now, he would not laugh at her efforts, but his eyes would grow dark and he would turn his head away if she embarrassed him. Dís sometimes felt as if she lived to ease her brother’s way and to dishonor him or cause him disappointment was anathema to her.

“Maybe we should give up,” Hervor said in a rush.

“We can’t,” Dís lamented. “Now that Víli and Bofur and Bombur know? They’d never let us hear the end of it. I can picture it now.” She affected the accent of the Ered Luin, raised her eyebrows and deepened her voice, “‘Oooh, lassies, whatever happened to yer dancin’? Ah, now, we’ve been cheated of a treat! Go on, go on, give us a dance! Our customs don't seem half so shabby now, _eh_? Bet yer Erebor ways weren’t so fine after all.’”

Hervor nodded miserably, “Aye, you’re right. They’d laugh us straight out of town.” Picking twigs and such out of her hair that accumulated during the rougher bits of their dance, she continued with false optimism, “Well, we’ve got a week to improve ourselves.”

“Hallo! Is that Dís and Hervor in the gloom?” a cheerful voice called to them from the top of the hill. Squinting into the darkness, Dís saw the silhouette that seemed to be made entirely of curves, coming toward them at a quick trot. A smile broke over her face when she saw it was the pastry cook’s daughter.

“Thyra!” she sat up and waved. “I’m glad to see you, for a moment I thought you were one of those bothersome miners come to vex us.”

“Which bothersome miners?” Thyra asked with a grin. “There are so many about in these parts.” She sat down and handed them each a round object wrapped in cloth. “I ran halfway here so they’d still be hot. Durin’s Day rolls, a full week early!”

“Thyra, I could kiss you!” Hervor exclaimed, unwrapping her roll and biting into it with gusto.

“Don’t get too excited,” Thyra warned. “I burnt the bottoms a bit...ah...over-caramelized, rather. It’s what me Da told me to say, he claims it sounds better than ‘burnt.’”

The bottoms of the rolls did have a distinct, smoky taste that was not ordinarily desirable for sweet breads, but the sword dancers were hungry and not about to turn their noses up at free food. “The top half’s really good,” Dís said, trying to be complimentary. “Did you add the honey and all?”

“Nah,” Thyra said. “Ma says if you bake ‘em up right, they won’t need no honey on top. I’ve got that down well enough, I just need to remember to flour the pans before I put the rolls in. Ah, well, live and learn! How’s the dancing coming, may I ask?”

“It’s....what would you say, Dís?”

“It could be better. S’pose it could be worse as well,” she replied honestly. “It’s hard, even between the two of us, we don’t have that much knowledge of how the sword dancing is meant to be. We think we’re going to make a terrible botch of it.”

Thyra clucked her tongue sympathetically, tucking some flyaway strands of blonde hair behind her ears. “I’m sure it’ll be lovely. Long as no one gets hurt, eh?”

“Well, that’s part of the problem,” Hervor sighed deeply. “There’s just not enough bloodshed.”

The baker looked between the other two lasses like she suspected they were pulling her leg. “Bloodshed’s your aim, then?”

“Of course!” Dís replied immediately. Sword dancers were expected to come away with a few bruises and lacerations, otherwise the spectators would think you weren’t trying very hard.

Thyra paused a minute and let this information sink in. “You must find our sword dancing very dull,” she said at last.

“Oh it’s fine, for what it is,” Hervor reassured her quickly. “But our people haven’t had a proper Durin’s Day in more nor half a century. We don’t want our ways lost for all our travel.”

Thyra smiled. “Your hearts are in the right place, so I think whatever you do will be stunning. I can’t wait to see it! Have you told your families yet?”

“Not..as such, no.” Hervor shrugged, wiping her hands free of crumbs. “I told my father I’m sparring with Dís in the evenings, he doesn’t ask too many questions.”

“I haven’t told my brother a thing,” Dís informed them.

“Oh, why not?” Thyra asked. “Surely, of all your folk, he’d be the most pleased.”

“And the most disappointed if it turns out to be a waste. We were just talking about giving up before you happened along.”

“Oh, you couldn’t!” the fair haired maid cried. “Not after all your hard work!”

“Well, we couldn’t because _someone_ had to open her great big mouth and let half the village know what we’re up to,” Hervor said pointedly. “Not that I’m naming names.” She coughed without reason and the cough sounded very much like the words ‘LadyDís.’

The aforementioned lady gave her friend a hard shove back on the grass. “I didn’t tell half the village. Víli inquired after the axe I’m making and it just slipped out.”

“And then Bofur found out and Bombur and Bifur,” Hervor continued.

Dís rolled her eyes. “I hardly think we need to worry about Bifur spreading the world all over,” she pointed out. “He’s got some discretion.”

“Would that the whole family had axes in their heads if that’s how discretion’s come by among that lot.”

“Hey now!” Thyra protested. “Bombur won’t go flapping his jaws, why, I don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak more nor five words together.”

Hervor leaned over and patted the other girl on the knee. “That’d be because he’s sweet on you and can’t find his tongue when you’re around.”

She blushed pink in the darkness. “Oh, now, no. No. He just...likes me breads. That’s all.”

“Oh, you’re telling us Bombur wants a taste of your rolls?” Dís asked with a wink and Thyra was so shocked by the innuendo, she tackled her to the ground. The dark haired girl laughed and laughed and soon it wasn’t long before Thyra was laughing right along with her.

“You’re very funny,” she said, sitting up, but not allowing Dís to rise. “What was that about discretion?”

“I never claimed to have any,” Dís replied, plain honesty in her face. “I was the one who yammered to Víli, wasn’t I? I’m the reason we can’t get out of this mess.”

“I think you’re both being too dour,” Thyra rolled off Dis and smoothed her tunic down primly. “Isn’t there someone you could talk to?”

“I haven’t any women kinfolk left,” Hervor said. “Neither have you, eh?”

Dís shook her head, “Not a one. ‘Less you count Balin, he can be a bit of a mother hen.”

“Why not count Balin?” Thyra asked. “He knows the way of your folk through and through, he might have some good advice.”

“He’s seen sword dances, sure, probably danced some in his day, but it’s different for the menfolk. Theirs are more about dancing and less...” Dís cast her mind around for a word, but was beaten to it by Thyra.

“Mauling?”

“Aye, that’s it exactly.”

It being very late, the young girls walked together back to the village and bade one another goodbye before they made for their separate dwellings. Dís lived with Thorin in a small, cozy house carved from the rock. They used to share a room, but when their mother took sick, her brother moved into her quarters and Dís was left to herself. It was an arrangement that worked out well for her this year, since she could practice her sword dancing (silently) without him being any the wiser.

Only she and her brother lived in the house, but they rarely took their meals alone. More often than not, Balin and Dwalin were at their table and they hosted others of their kin and kindred for a many a meal, especially during winter when the nights were long and the days cold. That night, it was her Thorin and Dwalin together at the table, just placing hot plates of beef and potatoes on the table when Dís came in.

“Any left?” she asked, tossing her sword down on one of the chairs by the fireplace.

“Plenty,” Thorin replied, not looking at her, but at the weapon she’d laid aside. “But only for honest folk, not thieves. Is that mine?”

“I didn’t thieve it, I borrowed it,” Dís said, going to the hearth and making herself a plate. “Brought it back, didn’t I? Safe as houses.”

Dwalin sniggered and Thorin leveled a glare at him. “You have something to add?”

“Spuds’re a bit underdone,” he said, knowing better than to take sides.

Thorin harumphed and sat down to his dinner, pushing his sister’s chair out with his boot that she might sit down. “Well, cook them up yourself next time.”

His friend considered the offer for a moment and shrugged. “Might do.” Turning to Dís he asked, “How d’you feel about venison?”

“You catch it, I’ll eat it,” she replied agreeably through a mouthful of potatoes.

“You’re not getting off that easy,” he said with a smirk. “If I’m doing the cookery, you’ll do the hunting, ‘specially if it’s deer we’re after. You’re better with a bow than I.”

Dís groaned and complained, “Thorin’s better than I am, why can’t he come along?”

“Because if you’re hunting tomorrow afternoon, someone has to stay behind and mind the shop,” her brother answered. 

“Then we’ll not have any venison because I’m otherwise engaged,” Dís said, her mind once again flooding with thoughts of the less than magnificent sword dance she and Hervor were working so hard on.

“Where’ve you been going so much of late?” her brother asked, clearly voicing a question that had been on his mind for some time. “Disappear straight after work and not home ‘til supper or later. And I know you’ve not been wasting time with those miners at the pub.”

“Do you?” Dís asked, glancing over at Dwalin who seemed wholly absorbed in spearing a potato. “And how’s that?”

“I like a drink sometimes,” he mumbled, almost sheepishly, and stood to pour himself some small ale.

Dís raised an eyebrow across the table at her brother who raised his own right back at her. “You’re staying out of trouble, then?”

Sighing, she nodded, “Aye, you’ve got no cause for worry on my account. Hervor and I spar sometimes in the evenings, nothing very interesting about it.”

“New sparring partner?” Dwalin asked, sitting back down with his mug. “What, I’m not good enough for you, lass?”

Patting his hand in a kindly way, Dís reassured him, “Now, now, you’re a lovely sparring partner. I was just looking to diversify my experience. Can’t limit myself to fighting elderly dwarves all the time, eh?” Dwalin raised a ruckus about it and Thorin declared that if his friend was elderly, he must be getting near retirement age and how would _she_ like to run the forge all by her lonesome? And thus the topic was dropped. The rest of the evening they spoke about their usual business, Dís asked how the delivery had gone (well) and where Balin was (dining at Gróin’s that evening) and after a pipe, Dwalin went on his way, bidding the siblings good night.

Thorin sat in what, until recently, had been his mother’s chair by the fire while Dís curled up in the chair opposite, a basket of clothes to be mended on the floor between them. “Are you looking forward to the holiday?” she asked casually, threading her needle and setting to darn a hole in an old tunic.

“Hmm?” Thorin asked, frowning at a pair of socks so full of holes they wouldn’t even keep a toe warm.

“Durin’s Day,” his sister clarified, tilting her head at the socks. “I think those are a loss. Anyway, I was asking if you were pleased about it.”

“Aye,” he nodded, unraveling the socks to save some yarn. “Much as the next Dwarf, I imagine. And yourself?”

"Looking forward to it,” she agreed. “Thyra gave us some rolls to sample, the bottoms were black, but she’s got a week to get ‘em up in fighting shape.”

The word ‘fighting’ triggered something in Thorin’s memory and he lowered his hands, raising his eyes to look at his sister, firelight dancing on her face. She was looking very grown-up these days, even if most of the time, in his mind, she was still the little dwarfling he and Frerin used to play merry games with to keep her spirits up in their long trek across the continent. “In Erebor, you’d be doing a sword dance this year,” he remarked. Dís went so still that, for one heart-pounding moment, he thought she didn’t understand what he was talking about. “You remember the sword dances, don’t you? Not these Blue Mountain jigs, but proper dancing?”

“Of course I do,” she said, jabbing the needle through the fabric she held, a bit harder than was needed. “I mean...well, I remember seeing one or two. And Ama used to talk about hers around Durin’s Day, how the other lass needed twelve stitches and she herself only had eight and a cracked rib. Oh, and she bit her cheek and had to keep swallowing blood down and there was so much of it she got sick after.”

“And when Adad saw her, blood all over her teeth running down her beard, he went directly to Grandfather and told him that was the lass he was destined to wed,” Thorin finished, relieved that his sister remembered so much. “Do you remember what Grandfather told him?”

“He said he was relieved because Grandmother already came to him and said that she wanted Ama for a daughter-in-law,” Dís finished proudly. The story of how their parents came to marry was a romantic one, recalled less and less as time went on and her father’s growing isolation from the family became intolerable.

“I’m glad you’ve such a long memory,” Thorin smiled and Dís lit up; she loved being the reason for her brother’s smiles. “Durin’s Day...it’s fine enough here, for what it is, but nothing like Erebor.”

“Nothing like,” she echoed, finishing her stitching. It would hold for another two or three washes before it came undone again. Standing, she folded the garment over her arm and crossed to kiss her brother goodnight. “Still, we’ll have fun, won’t we? Sleep well, brother. Sweet dreams.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just commenting to add that, if you're trying to picture Hervor and Thyra, my mental image for Thyra is the girl from the WETA female dwarf concept art with the blonde hair that's loose down her back, but with a thick braid going over the top of her head - only with a more substantial beard than the wispy ones they gave the lady dwarves in the movie, I picture her with smooth, long sideburns that she braids up into her hair so it doesn't get in the way when she's cooking. Hervor is basically Merida from _Brave_ only shorter, wider and curvier, with a mustache she braids back up into her hair and a beard that she plaits pretty elaborately most days. The Dís in my head looks like young Jennifer Connelly, but with a bigger nose. She's got a beard long enough to braid, no mustache, usually she just gathers it all into one beard-ponytail with different beads because it's easier.
> 
> Little bit of added Khuzdul in this chapter, all from the Dwarrow Scholar's English-Khuzdul dictionary, accessed from his website http://dwarrowscholar.mymiddleearth.com - "Ama" = a shortened form of "amad" meaning "mother," and "Adad" = "father."


	3. Chapter 3

The first shift miners of the Ered Luin rose so early in the morning that the sky was only faintly brushed with purple around the edges. Víli walked the dark streets with the confidence of one who’d resided in the mountains all his days. He sat upon an obliging stone bench to wait for his friends that they might make the trek to work together and the light that flared from his match as he lit his pipe was the brightest illumination in the square that day.

He liked the pre-dawn quiet before the hustle and bustle of the mines, full of noises. Shuttered up shops slowly opened around him, the bakery first, then the forges since both had to get their fires going early so they’d be burning hot by the time the rest of the town was out and about. Bofur and Bombur, fond of sleeping late, usually weren’t dressed and ready to go until the sky was ruby-red as the sun rose behind the hills, so he was surprised to see their familiar outlines coming toward him at a quick clip.

“What’re you two doing here so early?” Víli asked as Bofur skidded to a stop before him. Bombur, red-faced and puffing, was only a few paces behind him.

“Couldn’t sleep,” the red-haired brother replied shortly, sitting beside Vílli to catch his breath. “Actually,” he amended, “ _I_ could’ve slept just fine, but for his tossing and turning and moaning and groaning from the next bed.”

Víli tutted in sympathy, “Sore sorry to hear it, what’s troubling you?”

“Sword dancing!” Bofur cried, obviously in the throes of despair. He was tugging on his braids so fiercely that their perpetual turn-up had gone straight. “I was up half the night thinking about it, I can’t get it out of my head! We’ve got to ask someone, I can’t take this not knowing.”

His friend was in agreement with them on that point. What were those lassies playing at, keeping secrets? They had to know that telling a fellow about something and deliberately keeping him in the dark on the details made him all the more curious. Better by far for Dís to have lied to him yesterday than torment him with half-answers and evasions. “What we need is someone from Erebor who isn’t so sly and sneaky as them lasses of our acquaintance.”

They both agreed that they wouldn’t get another word out of Dís or Hervor, but Dís’s brother and cousins weren’t likely to oblige them either and Hervor’s father was generally regarded as the most frightening Dwarf in the region where his daughter was concerned. They needed someone who’d be willing to tell all, someone who might be amenable to a bit of bribery, if it came to that, someone like...someone like...

“Young Nori!” Víli shouted pointing at the lad he just spotted walking out of the house. A grin stretching his mouth from ear-to-ear even as the young dwarf jumped, not expecting his name to be bellowed from across the street so early in the morning. Why, of course, he _lived_ with Erebor-born folk! His landlady Irpa and her son Dori were both in the Lonely Mountain when it was set upon by the dragon and Nori was born either right before or right after the attack. Surely the young dwarrow knew something. “Come,” he gestured. “Sit with us!”

The young dwarf looked at them appraisingly, not sure their attentions were benign. Víli found his paranoia charmingly ridiculous and shoved Bombur off the bench, patting the now-empty space on beside him in invitation to sit. Nori took the seat gingerly, as Bombur rose and dusted himself off, still giving his mother’s lodger a strange look. “Shouldn’t you be on your way to work?”

“We’ll just be a few minutes behind, the mountain’s not going anywhere. So, young Nori,” he was always ‘young Nori’ to Víli and likely would be until he was in his third century. “Tell us what you know about sword-dancing.”

The young dwarrow looked at the eager, upturned faces of the miners in mild alarm, as though they had collectively and unexpectedly become a bit dull-witted and it worried him. “Er...it’s dancing,” he said slowly. ”With swords.”

“Right, we’ve got that bit,” Bofur said impatiently. “But _Erebor_ sword dancing is different from ours, yeah?”

Nori shrugged noncommittally. “I dunno. I suppose so.”

“Well, we’re a bit curious, y’see, Durin’s Day being so close at hand. We figured you were just the dwarf to enlighten us, being Erebor-born and all.”

“I was only born a few years before mountain fell,” Nori clarified. “I’ve only seen my people’s sword dancing once in my life and that was for a wedding.”

“But you did _see_ it?” Bombur urged, more gently than his brother.

Once again, Nori hitched his shoulders ambiguously. Shrugging and eye-rolling were his favorite methods of communication of late. “A bit. I was twenty, I was more interested in cake, to be honest.”

“Was it a lad and a lass?” Bofur pressed him. “Two lads? Two lassies?”

Nori looked at all of them and shook his head a bit helplessly. “I have no idea, sorry. What’s this all about?”

“Alright laddie, thanks for your time, off with you now,” Víli rose and knocked the spent ashes out of his pipe. “I don’t want to keep your brother waiting.”

Belatedly, Nori realized that the more information he gave them, the less time he’d spend at the loom with his brother breathing down his neck. “Hang on! Oh, erm, I remember now...they, er...it’s all coming back to me. It was...well, it’ll take me a long time to do it justice, first they...lit themselves on fire - ”

“Enough, enough,” Víli said, giving him a nudge along the road. “Be gone with you now, young Nori, otherwise I’ll tell your brother why his supply of pipeweed’s been so low of late.”

The lad looked at his lodger, aghast. “You wouldn’t!”

“I would,” he replied, drawing his eyebrows down sternly. But Víli was unable to make good on his threat since, at that precise moment, the aforementioned elder brother stormed through the sheets, shouting for his wayward sibling and apprentice.

“ _There_ you are!” Dori thundered so loudly that some turned to watch the scene with amused smiles on their faces. The sight of the eldest of Irpa’s sons running around after the youngest was so common and always so entertaining that some referred to their public spats as daily theatricals. “Are those yesterday’s clothes? You didn’t even come home at all last night, did you? Where have you been?”

“Here, obviously,” Nori replied obstinately, kicking a pebble with the toe of his boot. Dori brother seized hold of the scruff of his beard, just as if Nori was a child of thirty who needed telling off and his brother let out an indignant cry, batting his hands away.

“Now, now!” Bofur said, ever the peacemaker. “It’s our fault young Nori was skiving off, we had a question for him that wanted answering. He was obliging us with a word on your customs and ways, he _said_ he had to dash or you’d be cross, but we insisted he stay and talk to us.”

Dori looked as if he did not quite believe the miner, but he let his brother go all the same. “Questions about customs?” he asked skeptically.

Víli nodded. He wasn’t much of a liar himself, but they _had_ been questioning the lad and he _had_ been answering, even if his skiving started long before they called him over. “Sword dancing, in particular.” He tilted his head and gave Dori the once-over before asking, “Say, now, you must’ve seen a bit back at the Lonely Mountain round Durin’s Day. Care to describe it to us?”

“It’s dancing with swords,” the older dwarf replied shortly. “I haven’t the time for this and neither has he - and neither do you, I’m sure. Good morning.” This time he did not do his brother the indignity of grabbing him by his beard, but he took hold of one of his ears and dragged him off to their shop.

Bofur stared after them and frowned, “That family.” It appeared he was going to elaborate, but anyone who had any extended contact with the Ri brothers knew that, while there was much that could be said about them, there was little point in elaborating.

“You don’t live with ‘em,” Víli pointed out. The rates were low and his landlady was an excellent cook - did all the mending too, he’d bring coats to her that were little more than rags and they’d come back better than they were when he first purchased him - but the brothers’ fighting could become very wearing very quickly.

“Did young Nori come home last night?” Bombur asked curiously.

Víli shrugged. “If he did, I didn’t hear him. Poor old Dori wore a hole in the hearth rug, stayed up all night pacing, I reckon. ‘Course, now he sees he’s safe and sound, he’ll just start in on the lad, not say a word ‘bout how much worrying he did over him.” Probably a result of not having kinfolk himself, but Víli thought brothers ought to treat one another a bit more cordially than did Dori and Nori. Look at Bofur and Bombur, they were practically inseparable.

“Well, we can’t solve their problems talking about ‘em behind their backs,” he said brightly, giving Bofur and Bombur a bracing backslap. “Come along, lads! Day’s a-wastin’.”

The miners bickered and joked the whole way to work, each coming up with more elaborate and preposterous theories about the Lonely Mountain’s new year’s customs, they even continued the debate in iglishmêk, once the noise of the mines made speech impossible. Above ground, the residents of the Ered Luin went about their business as usual and around midday, Nori got a break from sitting at his brother’s elbow in a sticky, overheated room, and took a stroll to the smithy to pick up an order.

If the trio of miners from that morning wanted information on Erebor customs, they’d do well to spend a few hours at their king’s forge. It was a strange thing, he mused, that the king of a great people (for the Dwarves of Erebor were still great, albeit scattered) would toil his youth away making cooking pots for old women and pins for tailors when his hands were capable of crafting blades of the finest make, but Thorin Oakenshield was never one to shirk from labor. He never asked of his people more than he was willing to do himself.

Nori privately thought his ruler (no offense meant, may his beard grow ever longer and may his mines yield mithril until the End of Days) had the whole king thing completely backward. Of _course_ kings had the right to demand work from his subjects that they were too important to perform. If Nori was King Under the Mountain, even in exile, he’d never set up shop like a commoner and hire out one of his most skilled warriors and noble sister to work alongside him. He would live in a great big house deep within the mountain with servants who would never wake him before the sun was up, no one would _ever_ be permitted to go around calling him Young Nori as though it was his given name (he’d chop their heads off, he read it was something kings did) and there would be no elder brother to use him as an errand boy.

That was the rub; in order for Nori to become king, he would have to get rid of his elder brother who would have the stronger claim to the throne. Because family bonds were so tight-knit amongst dwarrows, kin-slaying was almost unheard of in their history. Those who did raise a hand to strike down a brother or a father (or, crime of crimes, a mother or a sister) were reviled for their evil deeds or, at best, pitied for their madness. Clearly, none of them suffered under the tyranny of Dori.

He would carve out quite a reputation for himself, he smiled at his private joke as he walked the streets, before he was inevitably deposed. Usurpers were usually deposed, he read that somewhere too. King Nori the Bloody. King Nori the Shiftless. King Nori -

“Young Nori!” a booming voice called out to him as he neared the smithy. “What are you doing so far from the loom? Does your brother know you’re out and about?”

Nori groaned and clapped a hand to his head in agony, “Oh, don’t tell me he’s got _everyone_ doing it now.”

“He who?” Dwalin asked, inappropriately amused by the dwarfling’s anger.

“Víli and his group of village idiots, those slack-jawed, unread, thrice-damned miners,” Nori glowered, leaning an elbow against the counter of the stall and resting his cheek on his fist.

“Mind your tone,” Thorin said warningly from the back of the forge.

“That’s no way to speak of your elders,” Dwalin added with mock-severity.

“They aren’t my elders!” Nori exploded. “They’re fifteen years older than me, if they’re a day - the only reason they’re out of their apprenticeships is because of their profession - and yet _I’m_ young Nori?”

The old warrior was fighting the urge to ruffle the young dwarrow’s hair, he was so entertaining when he was in a strop. Beside him, he saw Thorin turn to face the wall, battling a smile of his own. “Curse of being the youngest in the family,” he said sagely. “Don’t take it too hard, one day you’ll run the shop along of your brother and no one will remember ‘young Nori.’”

Thorin snorted and muttered to himself, “If he keeps carrying on about it, they will.”

The younger dwarf shuddered. “Don’t even say that. Don’t even _think_ it. If I’m to work alongside my brother forever,” he paused and laughed bitterly, “to work _under_ by brother forever, I’ll hang myself with his own silks.”

Thorin dumped Dori’s order of steel knitting needles on the counter. “There you are. Save your moans of self-slaughter for someone of a more sympathetic disposition, I’ve no patience for it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Nori said with his usual lack of due deference. Thorin turned away and took up his hammer, happy to drown out the sound of the youth’s whinging. Maybe he was showing his age, but he could not recall a time when _he_ was such a melancholic and he had far more to despair of in his life than this coddled merchant’s son. The lad’s father who died defending their camp from marauding orcs early in their exile, probably found less to complain of in his final violent moments than Nori did in an hour’s walk down the street.

The young dwarf turned to go and nearly ran smack into Thorin’s sister. “Whoa there, young Nori!” she said sunnily and he glowered at her. “Where are you off to?”

“Back to the loom,” he replied gloomily.

“That’s a shame, d’you want a bite to eat before you go? I’ve just been down the bake shop, there’s pasties.”

Nothing could make a dwarfling forget the indignity of being called by an ill-regarding nickname swifter than the promise of food. “Well,” he said slowly, eying the wrapped parcels in her hands prospectively, “if you’re insisting...”

“I am,” she said with a definite nod of her head, handing him a hot, paper-wrapped parcel. “Come round the back and sit a while.”

Nori took a seat on a stool near the side of the shop and Dwalin joined him on another. Thorin’s food was left untouched for he desired to continue working if Master Misery was going to be passing the hour with them. Dís said he really wasn’t as bad as all that and could actually be quite lovely to chat so long as you didn’t mention his brother, but Thorin would not be swayed.

“That was quick,” Dwalin commented as he unwrapped a meat-filled pie. “Did you run there and back?”

“Nah,” Dís replied. “Didn’t have to. We’re so regular in our habits they had the order ready to go before I walked in the door. It’s a bit, sad really.”

“Not half bad, though,” Nori commented, licking juice from his arm.

“Not at all,” she nodded. “What’ve you been up to of late?”

“I’ve been...about,” Nori said evasively. “Had a talk with the miners, you know, that lot you and Hervor knock about with - ”

“You’ve been known to knock about with ‘em too, don’t lie.”

Rolling his eyes, Nori took a bite of his pasty; an evening out with a gaggle of illiterate miners was time better spent than cooped up knitting with his mother and brother. Truth be told, he _liked_ Víli, after a fashion. The golden haired young dwarf moved into their spare room only a year or two after his family settled in the Ered Luin and he was - unlike their King-in-Exile - a sympathetic soul who didn’t mind the youngster bending his ears with his woes. Gave good advice too. Not that Nori followed it often, but he recognized that he ought to. “They were interrogating me about new year’s customs in Erebor, seemed awfully insistent. Probably come bothering you next, once they’re out of work. Fair warning.”

“They bothered me about it yesterday,” Dís replied, brushing crumbs off her tunic distractedly. “I must not have satisfied them.”

“What would they care about it?” Dwalin asked. “I’d think their own customs here would suit ‘em well enough.”

“Well, if I had to guess,” Nori said slyly, “I’d reckon it had something to do with a certain lass my lodger’s sweet on.”

“Young Nori, I’m shocked and appalled,” Dís said, not sounding as if she were either of those things. “I break bread with you and you tease me, what sort of gratitude is that?”

“Dís,” Thorin poked his head round back. “Or Dwalin, doesn’t much matter who, there’s a order wants taking inside.”

“I’ll do it,” Dís offered, waving at Dwalin to bid him keep his seat, “I had one on the way here, I’m through eating.”

Once she was gone, Dwalin cast a suspicious eye on the young, brown-haired dwarrow before him. “Was that just teasing?” he asked.

Nori’s mouth twisted in a smirk. “It’s the worst sort of teasing because it’s true. Víli moons over her, it’s quite funny. Thinking a royal lady from the line of Durin’d ever take up with the likes of him, he’s mad.”

“Mmm,” the older dwarf grunted unwrapping another pasty. Unexpectedly, Nori began to snigger. “What’s so funny?”

“The look on your face,” he answered. “Only I’m more used to seeing it on Dori’s. Big brother’s all concerned for little brother - or sister, whatever’s more apt.”

“I’m not her brother,” Dwalin grumbled, stuffing his face with an overlarge bite of his lunch.

“Might as well be,” Nori shot back. “You’ve got that same, ‘Stupid little dwarflings don’t know what’s what’ look. I know that look, I get it all the time. And _she’s_ of age.” He tucked his chin down and gave Dwalin such an insolent look, the warrior would be forgiven for wanting to slap it right off his face. “You do realize she’s of age, don’t you?”

“Aye,” he replied shortly. Of course he realized Dís was of age, she only grew lovelier and more womanish by the day. Speaking of days, if they _were_ in Erebor, she’d be doing her sword dance this year, like as not. “What was it those miners were so interested in?”

“Sword dancing,” Nori replied, finishing his luncheon and dusting his coat off. “I don’t remember much about it, honestly, I’ve seen more sword dances since we settled here - ”

“Not hardly the same thing,” Dwalin scowled. Was this what they were reduced to? The youngest of their people would shrug off their ignorance of Erebor and be satisfied adopting Broadbeam ways? It was a good thing Thorin chose to remain inside, such talk would have broken his heart and laid heavy on his mind.

The young dwarf seemed startled that the old warrior’s mood soured so. “Is that so?” he asked mildly. “Well, I don’t recall.”

“Ask your mother,” Dwalin insisted, his voice a low growl. “And be a damn sight more respectful about it than you’re being now. Our lassies trained up for months, looked strong as iron and beautiful as diamonds when the night came. You don’t recall.” He shook his head and stood up, cracking his knuckles. “Your ma’ll remember. And it’s high time you were heading back.”

Bereft of smart remarks, Nori nodded, picking up his parcel and inclining his head toward Dwalin with all the respect he previously lacked. “I will,” he said. “Erm...tell Dís thanks for the meal.”

As the dwarrow lad beat a hasty retreat home, Dwalin stared after him with shadowed eyes. His brother was satisfied with their current living arrangements. Peace and prosperity, he called it. Dwalin hoped he was just being unusually optimistic. If eking out a modest living by on the sweat of your brow in the land of another clan was what Balin considered prosperous, he’d be concerned his brother’s mind was going. What was the price of their peace? That their young folks should forget where they came from? How could they hope to retake their mountain when the young could hardly recall it and had no fire in their belly that turned their hearts and minds ever Eastward?

“Has young Nori gone already?" Dís returned to the outdoors, away from all the noise and smoke.

Dwalin nodded. “Aye, said he needed to be getting back, helping his brother.”

“Liar,” Dís reproached him playfully, elbowing him in the ribs. “You frightened him off, like as not. Anyway, work’s gone quicker than I thought, I’ve time to go on a hunt before close. Thorin’s said it’s alright if we head out now.”

“Still don’t have time after work?” Dwalin questioned her.

She shook her head resolutely. “Not today. I’ll just nip back to the house and fetch my quiver and bow, won’t be a minute.”

As he watched her jog off down the road, an inkling of what Dís’s true purpose might be tickled the back of his thoughts. Perhaps - just perhaps, mind - their traditions weren’t as lost as he feared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot get enough of teenage shithead!Nori. He's about 13/14ish in dwarf years and a few years away from turning rogue. The Víli/Bofur/Bombur crew are about 18/19 in dwarf years and Dís is just about 17. Poor old Dwalin and Thorin are in their mid to late 20s, as is Dori (I feel like Nori made him go gray early).


	4. Chapter 4

Dís was very beautiful when she was hunting. The thought came to Dwalin so swift and sudden, it was like a wasp’s sting. And like a wasp, he wanted to slap it away, but he could not move for fear of startling their prey.

So the thought lingered. About her wavy black hair tied in a long, thick plait down her back so as not to tangle with the bowstring. Her blue eyes, normally so coy and merry, slitted now, focused with unblinking intent on the animal just close enough to them that she was almost assured of getting a good shot off. Her broad shoulders were set and her lips parted slightly, rosy red above the neat line of her beard which lay upon her jaw so smooth and lovely. Her tunic (slightly too large for her, probably one of Thorin’s pilfered from the laundry) obscured most of her form, but her strong legs above her boots were outlined clearly in her leggings as she crouched, the perfect keen-eyed predator in the tall grass. 

He swallowed hard, mouth gone dry.

The bowstring drew back and all Dwalin was conscious of was his own breathing as Dís fired her arrow into the neck of the unfortunate deer who was so obliging as to stumble into their path. It was a swift death. The animal stumbled and fell, twitched a few times, before lying still on the grass.

“Not a bad spot,” he observed, rising from their hiding place in the surrounding shrubbery to inspect the kill. “How’d you find it?”

“Thyra, the baker’s daughter,” Dís replied, rising and following him, bow dangling by her side. “She said it’s not bad hunting, ‘specially in autumn when the herds start to get scarce. Fairly quiet too, not a lot of folks about. Good for privacy.”

Dwalin snorted, “Never known you to go in for privacy.” And he’d known her all her life. Soon as she was steady enough on her feet to walk, she was running. Usually chasing after her brothers, always wanting to be included in their games and their lessons and their sport. Plain as day he remember handing her back to Thorin after she asked to go along on their hunt, the day Erebor fell. She was such a little thing then, hardly came up to his knee. It was a good job he hadn’t indulged her and she’d been with her mother. Queen Freya had the good sense to drop everything and run out with her daughter, saving both of them from a fate too horrid to reflect on.

“Well, I can’t spend all my days trailing after you and Thorin, can I?” she elbowed Dwalin playfully. “You’re bound to get tired of me sooner or later.” He did not answer her. “Eh?” Still no response.

Dís’s mouth twisted into a frown at her kinsman’s sudden, surly silence and pensive look, but she could not fathom the cause. With a playful smile, she launched herself at the tall, broad dwarf, taking his legs out from under him and tackling him to the ground.

“Gotcha!” she crowed, joyfully. “Look at you, letting yourself get taken unawares!” she grinned, proud as could be at her second catch of the day. Dís made herself comfortable, balancing her head on her arms crossed over his chest and looked at him with those bright, bonny blue eyes of hers.

When she landed on top of him, their chests flush and her hair tickling his chin, Dwalin was struck by two warring responses. _You aren’t a little dwarfling anymore_ , he might say gruffly and she would start, sitting up, thinking she’d offended him. But Dís was neither stupid nor naive. She would understand the import of his words soon enough and then...and then, what?

In his heart feelings of want and shame waged war against one another and no victor rose triumphant from the fray. This was a lass he’d known all her life, he carried her in his arms when she was a babe and bore her on his back when she was older and they were so long wandering. Always he’d been fond of her and loved her as Thorin did. A sort-of sister, bright-eyed and eager, following whenever she could and looking on them so sadly when she was made to stay home. As she grew older and stronger and more capable, she was away from them less and less, but it was only within the last year or so that this terrible _wanting_ turned his feelings for her less than brotherly.

If he revealed it, how could he honestly expect her to respond? That she would _return_ his desires was so great a fantasy it did not bear considering. Would she laugh at him? Very possibly, and what a merry laugh it would be, thinking he was making a joke of her. Or would she turn cold, nervous to be around him because she did not love him as he would be loved?

He could abide her laughter. He could abide her ignorance. But he could not abide going without the companionship and love he now enjoyed and he would not taint her free and easy way with him for an idle fancy.

So, rather than saying anything that might give her insight into the state of his heart, Dwalin shoved her aside and chided her with a, “Wild little dwarfling!”

 _There_ was her own good Dwalin again. It worried her when he or Thorin became quiet and looked off at nothing, seeing sights and hearings sounds beyond her ken. It meant they were going somewhere she could not follow and she’d never stood for that, not even when she was a wee thing, tripping over her own feet to keep up with them. “If I am wild, it’s your own fault,” she shrugged carelessly, getting to her feet to help him tie up and carry their meal home.

That was true enough, he supposed. Dwalin would never say a word against Thráin, presumed dead all these years, but he was never the father he could have been. Crippled with melancholy, his own father used to say, disapprovingly, but never in his King or princes’ hearing. More often than not, himself and his brother were the ones who took charge of the young princes and little princess. He and Thorin were nearly of an age and Dwalin could not remember a time when he was not at their heir’s side. They were brothers in bond, if not in blood and he would live and die for his king, whether in the throne room of Erebor or in an ill-stocked forge in a little mountain town.

Thorin was made to grow up decades before his time, even before they were forced out of their home by that cursed fire-drake. Took care of his little brother and sister when their parents’ arguments (oh, aye, they thought they were very secretive about it, but the very walls of Erebor had ears) got too hot to bear. And when their mother was worn out tending her children and their people alone - her husband too wrapped up in his own grief to care tuppence for either - it was Thorin who made sure they had food to eat and were kept warm nights. Taught them nearly all they knew, with himself and Balin aiding as far as fighting and learning went.

Many of their folk didn’t understand the prince, even though they took to calling him King readily enough after his father’s disappearance proved permanent. Eegardless of the esteem they held for Thorin Oakenshield, there were some who found him too cold, too quiet, too solitary. They didn’t know him at all; Thorin was warm as the sun with those he loved and trusted. Wasn’t his fault there weren’t more than a handful of such Dwarves left now.

Like this shining girl, this mischievous, sweet, steely, blue-eyed thing who’d stolen his heart before he realized it was missing. Dís was the diamond of Thorin’s treasure house, she could get her brother smiling and lift years from his face simply by being herself since he loved her fiercely. Why shouldn’t he? Dís was one of the few dwarves in this world he could truly call his own.

The Broadbeams around them often marveled that so many from the Lonely Mountain settled among them and families lived right on top of the other, constantly coming and going among the houses. Impractical, some said. Why had they not split up long ago, make finding work and a settlement easier? The plain fact was that they’d all lost so much already, they clung to one another tight as they could, fearful of losing yet more of their kin and kindred to the vagaries of place and time.

“You’re being awfully quiet,” Dís rightly observed. “Sore I got the shot off and you didn’t?”

“Why’d I be sore about that?” Dwalin asked, trying to keep his voice carefree. Lass was observant, wouldn’t do to have her thinking too hard about his sudden bad moods if he wanted to keep things as they were between them. “Who was it trained you how to use a bow in the first place?”

“Well, that’s an interesting question,” she mused, tossing her head to make the flyaway strands that came loose from her braid stay out of her face. “I think it was you gave me my first set to practice with, but you weren’t any help when it came to actually hitting the target.”

Dwalin bristled at that, “I was _some_ help.”

“Oh, aye, you were a very great help,” she amended. Then added, eyes sparkling with mischief, “A great help in showing me what _not_ to do.”

“Ah, y’see lass, that was the plan all along,” he replied, unmoved. “Bloody genius, me.”

“You were bloody that time I got you through the foot,” she recalled. “Did I ever apologize for that?”

“Could be, don’t think I heard you over the sound of your brothers’ laughing.”

“Well, the face you pulled was pretty damn funny,” Dís recalled, a grin sprouting as she remembered. “Eyes rolled back in the head and all.”

“That wasn’t from pain, but vexation,” Dwalin corrected her. “Think Frerin ‘bout wet himself with glee, the young idiot.”

Dís’s smile never faded, but some of the light went out of her eyes. The names of their honored dead should be spoken often, that they might not pass from memory. That was doubly true of the fallen of Azanulbizar who had no stones to mark their resting place nor crypt to hold their bodies. It did not change the fact that talking about her brother and grandfather was a painful process.

“He would have liked it here, don’t you think?” she asked Dwalin earnestly.

The veteran of the battle that claimed the lives of two she loved nodded, “Oh, no doubt. No doubt.”

They passed the rest of the journey to the butcher in silence, both pondering over matters their heads told their hearts were never to be.

Dís made her farewell, but not before handing Dwalin her quiver and bow and thanking him for bringing them back to the house for her - an offer he _never_ made, but he had no time to correct her since the wily lass took off like a bolt of lightning away from him.

“That wildcat you call ‘sister’ is a menace,” he announced to Thorin, who was closing the forge for the day.

His friend looked up at him and smirked, “Your news is coming about seventy years too late. You just figured that out today, did you? Don’t tell me she shot you in the foot again.”

“I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re on about.”

“Sure you don’t,” Thorin smiled, shuttering the stall. Before he shut himself away, he poked his head out and added to Dwalin, “I’ll never forget the look on your face. I save it in the back of my mind to recollect when I’m having a bad day. Never fails to cheer me.”

The two of them walked back to the house, debating what to do with the rest of their evening. It would take Vigg three days to properly bleed the deer, so they would have to wait before their catch could be cooked up. “Tonight’s a good night to get drunk,” Dwalin said, casting a speculative eye toward the pub as they passed it.

“You’re in a mood,” Thorin observed, giving Dwalin a searching look. Raising one brow, he asked, “ _Did_ she shoot you again?”

“Nah, she was fine.”

“So what’s got you in a strop?”

Remembering her keen-eyed stare, the confidence with which she shot her arrow and how achingly lovely she looked that day, he re-evaluated his statement, “Nothing. Tonight’s just an _especially_ good night to get drunk.”

Who could argue with that logic? Balin, evidently for when they came to ask the older dwarf whether or not he thought it was an especially good night for drinking, he said he didn’t think it was any better for drinking than any other night and opted to stay home.

He was one of the few in the Ered Luin to do so. Dwalin might very well have been onto something since most of the dwarrow residents of the region seemed to be crammed inside the pub, including Dís’s mining friends who waved Dwalin and Thorin over to their table as soon as they saw them walk through the door. The two dwarves exchanged a glance and silently decided that would be their best bet. It was a strategic decision, for there weren’t many other seats to be had. Durin’s Day might be six days off, but many would take advantage of the upcoming holiday to lighten their workloads and head for the alehouse in the spirit of anticipation.

“Where’s your sister at?” Bofur, the slender one with the ever-present hat, bellowed twice before Thorin properly understood him above the noise of the crowd. It appeared the lads had been drinking since the moment they left the mines for their faces were flushed and their gestures sweeping and grand, indicative of the enthusiasm of early intoxication.

“That’s her own business,” Thorin replied sternly. He certainly wasn’t about to tell them that he hadn’t the faintest idea where she was, he’d look a miserable older brother.

Víli snorted into his stout, “She’s abandoned you lot as well? Sorry state of affairs this is.” 

Dwalin was halfway through a pint of ale and did not offer a comment.

“Where’s your cousin?” Thorin asked Bofur and Bombur.

“Making toys for the festival,” Bombur replied promptly. “Stayed home to get some extra work done.” Thorin nodded his understanding and hid his disappointment; Bifur was his favorite member of that family by far.

“Landlord!” Víli thumped the bottom of his mug on the table. “Another beer!”

Bildr, the brewer and proprietor of the establishment, laughed the command off. “You’ve got working arms, get it yourself!” he called over the heads of an overly-amorous couple who were being less than respectful of what the bar was meant to be used for. “I’m full up here! And you two cut that out, ain’t you got no decency?”

“Save me seat,” he pleaded with Bombur who obliged by resting his boots on Víli’s abandoned chair. “I should get half off, pulling me own pint!”

“Aye, you should at that, t’would only be fair. Too bad the world’s not a fair place,” Bildr retorted, rapping his knuckles on the bar to indicate that he wished to be paid in full.

Víli’s vacated place at the table was almost immediately filled by Glóin, son of Gróin who shoved Bombur’s leg off the chair without so much as a by-your-leave. “I was saving that!” the red-haired dwarrow-lad protested.

“‘Less he carved his name in it, it’s up for the taking, rules of war - ” the dwarf went pale when he saw that he was sitting at the same table as Thorin Oakenshield, who would likely not appreciate casual references to ‘carving’ and ‘war’ in the same sentence, but the noise of the place was so great that his ill-timed comment went unheard by the King-in-Exile. “What’ve you got to slaughter to get some food in this place?”

Bofur stood on the table that Bildr might see him better. “Landlord!” he shouted, waving his arms to make the greatest visual impact. “We got to turn the spits and roast our meat too?”

“I’d not turn down the extra help!”

“Will you be paying for services rendered?”

“Not on your life, laddie!”

“Kitchens are round the back,” Bofur said, climbing back down into his chair before it could be snatched up by some other sneaky so-and-so. “Got to give up your chair if it’s dinner you’re wanting,” he informed Glóin with a shrug.

“Have a pint o’this stuff, s’like drinking a loaf o’bread,” Víli advised, setting his refreshed tankard on the table. He didn’t pay any mind to the fact that his seat was taken and settled himself on Glóin’s lap, winking at Dwalin and Thorin as he did so.

“Get off!” Glóin shouted, giving the other dwarf a hard shove. Seeing as how it was only a short distance away from the table and he was squeezed in tight between Bofur and Bombur, there wasn’t anywhere for Víli to go.

The blonde miner was entirely too amused by Glóin’s disgust at having a lad perched on his knee. “Bombur said this chair was taken,” he reminded him with a sickly-sweet smile. “You’re just going to have to share if you want it. I’ve no complaint about that, I’m comfortable as can be - rather nice, this, I might like it more than the chair itself - ”

With a snarl and a grumble, Glóin pushed the chair away from the table and stood, sending Víli crashing to the floor. “I’d sooner carve my own stool than have you use me for a chair,” he groused, pushing and squeezing his way to the bar.

“No!” Víli cried, reaching out across the table at Glóin’s retreating back. “Come back! I was enjoying that!”

His friends began to guffaw and even Thorin and Dwalin had to smile at the display. Víli dragged himself back into his chair and took a long sip from his mug. “And that, lads, is how to reclaim your territory, without bloodshed, using only your wits. Some say it can’t be done, but I’m living proof that it _is_ possible.”

“You ought to go in for diplomacy,” Thorin observed wryly.

“I ought to at that,” Víli said with a dreamy look in his eye, stroking his beard. “‘Course, it only works when I’m too drunk to care about getting me teeth smashed down me throat.”

“But not drunk enough that you’d serenade him?” Bofur asked in a disappointed tone. “I was looking forward to that.”

“Serenade?” Dwalin asked, looking torn between curiosity and alarm.

“Oh, aye, Víli’s been known to make up love-songs on the spot for folks who steal his chair without permission. I think young Nori’s had five in his honor,” Bombur informed him.

“He’s a tough egg, that one, I don’t think you’ve got him to give up the seat yet,” Bofur added.

Víli shrugged his shoulders helplessly, “And I wouldn’t mind, honest, I wouldn’t, only his knees are a mite bony and not made for sitting on.” He made to take another draught of stout, but looked down his mug in astonishment. “And what do y’know? Empty again!”

“I’ll go this time!” Bofur volunteered, standing on the table and leaping off with a thud as his boots hit the floor. Whipping his hat off his head, he held it by the earflaps and turned it over, offering the empty cap to his companions. “Another round, lads?”

Everyone agreed and tossed their coins into the hat obligingly and the miner disappeared into the crowd (how he was ever going to carry all those drinks to the table, no one seemed to know). Scarce had he gone than another approached to take his place. 

“Hallo, lads!” a high, womanly voice carried as something round and blonde pushed its way through the crowd toward their table. It was Thyra, carrying her apron in her arms. Once she reached the table she opened it without any ado and covered the table with rolls and pasties. “Nearly fresh from the oven!”

“How near is ‘nearly’?” Dwalin asked, picking up one of the rolls and knocking it against the table.

“Day old baking?” Víli guessed rightly with a grimace. “You spoil us, lass.”

Whacking his shoulder, Thyra replied primly, “They’re not ‘old’ they’re...’mature.’ We’ll call them ‘mature.’ Anyway, they won’t kill you and I’d like to see you do better for yourself.”

Evidently there was a line of people who’d taken Bildr up on the self-service offer and it stretched around the perimeter of the pub. None of the dwarrows who made up this little drinking party wanted to fight the crowd for a turn at the spit so they ate the hours-old supper and thanked Thyra kindly for it. Even Bofur who appeared from the crowd, impressively balancing five tankards of stout, mead and ale one on top of the other, was pleased to find food at their table, even if it cost him his seat.

Patting his knee, Víli said, “Sit here! I’m not so pointy as young Nori, I make a sturdy seat.”

Bofur was not wound so tight as Glóin and so took up the proffered perch on his friend’s knee with nary a complaint. Thorin tilted his head toward Dwalin and asked, “Drunk enough, yet?”

Dwalin gave him an odd look over the top of his mug and replied, “If that’s your way of asking to sit on my lap, the answer is no.”

It most emphatically was _not_. Being King Under the Mountain did not entitle Thorin to much, but he hoped it meant he was allowed his own chair at the alehouse. When Bombur went for another pasty, Thyra smacked his hand away and said, “Save some for the girls! Hervor and Dís’ll be here any minute.”

Víli’s head snapped up so fast, he might have given himself whiplash. “They _are_ coming, then? Little misses aren’t too good for the likes of us after all?”

“‘Course we aren’t, what are you on about?” Hervor asked, all red hair and smiles, having fought her way through the crowd to get to the table, leaving a trail of bashed and bruised bodies in her wake. Leaning close, she caught a whiff of Víli’s breath and asked, “Just how much _have_ you drunk already?”

“Not enough,” Víli replied, craning his neck to look behind her. “Where’s your fellow?”

“Probably crawling over and under folks to get to the bar,” she answered him. “Never seen this place so packed before! Everyone taking the day out of work tomorrow? There another holiday coming up and I missed it?”

“We’re here on account of _you_ ,” Bofur leaned forward and pointed an accusing finger at Hervor. “You keep me up all night with your secrets and....secret things and I got to drink meself to sleep. Ought to be _ashamed_.”

Hervor tried and failed to suppress a laugh, “I’m sure I am,” she agreed. “Somewhere. Deep down inside. Ah, there’s the bar wench!”

Dís returned with three mugs of mead, one of which was set down before Thyra and the other handed to Hervor. “Huh,” she said, taking in the assembly around the table. “Looks like we’re the odd ones out.”

“No, there’s room!” Víli insisted.

Hervor agreed that, if they did a bit of maneuvering, everyone could squeeze in together. “Thyra just needs to get on Bombur’s lap, is all.”

The girl blushed pink from the tops of her round ears to the tip of her nose at that suggestion, as Bofur thumped the table top and howled his approval. “Aye! It’ll have t’be! No other choice! Go on, then, go on!”

“You don’t mind awfully?” she asked Bombur, who was, as usual, mute before those large green eyes.

“N-n-n-” he managed, but his brother took over and said of _course_ he doesn’t and you can’t leave the lassies without a chair! So Thyra moved onto Bombur’s lap and Víli was scant seconds away from shoving Bofur to the floor when Dís took up Bombur’s place and tugged Hervor down onto her own lap. Almost immediately he found himself staring at the bottom of yet another empty mug.

“How does this keep happening to me?” he asked Bofur plaintively.

The brown haired dwarrow shook his head sympathetically. “Bad luck,” he replied, clearly misunderstanding the question. Or, perhaps, understanding the meaning behind it more than Víli did. “Drunk enough for a song yet?”

His friend’s round, cheerful face lit at that. “I’m _always_ drunk enough for a song,” he said, removing his gittern from beneath the chair. It was a little awkward since he had to place it in Bofur’s lap and he had some difficulty plucking the strings, but it was no matter. The old favorites he played were well-known by all and the singing soon drowned out the chords his clumsy fingers botched.

The gathering was merry in the extreme, even Dwalin cheered up once he had some liquor running in his veins and music to sing. Thorin, by contrast, got quiet and thoughtful. He was watching his sister, in particular, of the group. Her eyes were sparkling with mirth and her cheeks steadily went rosy with the heat of the room and sweetness of the mead. She seemed happy. It did him good to see her so, but he could not stop himself remembering that she deserved so much more than an overcrowded pub in the Blue Mountains to retreat to after a long day of work and toil. She deserved better than a simple miner who was staring at her with slightly crossed eyes and a look of utter infatuation on his face.

Suddenly, the miner’s attention was diverted and he changed the song mid-tune. “Young Nori!” he shouted and the dwarrow-lad turned around slowly, mouth set in a hard line. “I’ve just the tune for you, laddie!

We're all met together here tae sit and tae crack,  
Wi' our glasses in our hands an' their work upon our backs.  
There's no a trade in all the earth can either mend or make  
We all need the work o' the weavers!

If it wasnae for the weavers what would we do?  
We widnae hae clothes made o' wool  
We widnae hae a coat neither black nor blue  
If it wasnae for the work o' the weavers!”

It was a well-known ditty, most of the pub joined in on the chorus, which Nori seemed to take as a personal insult. His face grew redder and redder without the excuse of drink and before Víli could start on the second verse, the lad pushed other patrons out of the way so he could get close enough to punch the older dwarf in the middle of his smiling face.

A collective gasp, half of astonishment, half of delight escaped the mouths of those who witnessed the unexpected violence. “Nori!” Hervor exclaimed, slapping him on the arm. “What’s all that about?”

Víli put a hand to his mouth and it came away with spots of blood on it. One of his teeth cut into his tongue, which smarted like damnation. Squinting at his landlady’s son, Víli didn’t say a word at first. If he hadn’t drunk quite so much he would have asked the boy what got him so riled - or it might have occurred to him that “Work O’the Weavers” was _never_ going to be a song close to Nori’s heart, but he was very drunk. Like the old saying went, a dwarf who had drink in him wanted one of two things: dancing or fighting. And the pub was too crowded for dancing.

“Right, lad,” he said, handing his instrument off to Bofur and shoving the dwarf off his lap. “If that’s how you want to play; we’ll play.” And, turning the table over in his eagerness, showering his companions with ale, he launched himself at Nori and the two of them were rolling on the ground, beating the hell out of one another with their fists.

Thorin and Dwalin stood up and pushed their chairs back, watching the fray with half the interest of everyone else around them who were hooting and hollering and stamping their feet in time to the blows. “Reckon young Nori’s got a chance?” Dwalin asked his friend boredly.

Thorin shrugged, apparently tired of the whole evening. “Could have a small one. Can’t match him in strength nor size, but he’s drunk enough, the lad might take advantage of that, if he’s quick.” Glancing up at Dwalin he asked him, “Are _you_ drunk enough?”

“Reckon I am at that,” he nodded. “Hot as the forge in here anyway and there’s not room enough to smoke.”

The two dwarves turned away from the fight and stepped out into the cool night air, leaning against the wall of the pub and lit their pipes. “Are we getting old?” Dwalin asked out of the blue.

His friend sighed and sucked in a lungful of smoke. “I’ve always been old,” he acknowledged ruefully. It was one of Frerin’s favorite insults. If his brother was here, he would have caught him by the arm as he tried to leave. _Grumpy old bugger,_ he’d say. _Come on back and watch the brawl. Won’t do you any harm and you might - may our ancestors forgive it -_ enjoy _yourself!_

Frerin would have loved the Blue Mountains. He would enjoy the company of those his sister counted as friends without constantly wishing for _more_. Frerin had a wonderful capacity for contentment which Thorin never enjoyed. It reminded him very much of his mother while Thorin...Thorin was more like his father. And it killed him a little bit to admit that.

He was pulled back to the present by the pub door slamming open beside him. Little Nori ran outside, blood dripping from his nose and one eye rapidly swelling shut. It was clear to see who’d come out the loser in that battle by the hunched, humiliated line of his shoulders. He did not pause, but ran in the direction of the house he shared with his mother and brother, though, knowing Nori, it was impossible to say whether that was his final destination or not.

“Nori!” Dís was hot on his heels, but he was already halfway down the street. “Where are you going?” she called after him. He didn’t even glance back. Belatedly, she noticed her brother and Dwalin standing in the road. With large, surprised eyes she asked, “When’d you take off?”

“After the fat lip, before the black eye,” Dwalin responded precisely.

“Are you smoking or leaving?”

“Smoking, then leaving,” Thorin told her. “And you ought to come along. There _isn’t_ a holiday tomorrow and we’ve work to do.”

“I should _hope_ there’s not a holiday tomorrow,” Dís muttered darkly to herself. Then, remembering that she wasn’t alone and there were secrets she was keeping, threaded her hands around both Thorin and Dwalin’s arms and said, “Well, let’s hie home, then. I don’t know about either of you, but I’ve had a _long_ day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the chapter in which Dís drives two otherwise upstanding citizens to drink! She's a wily one. The song Víli sings to Nori is called "Work o'the Weavers," it's another traditional Irish song (which are becoming obligatory in my fics), but the internet tells me this one was written by David Shaw in the 1840s. Out of copyright, but it's still nice to acknowledge authorship. Next chapter we finally get to meet Irpa, the mysterious Ri Mama!


	5. Chapter 5

Nori was absolutely, most emphatically and (why would you ever think this was anything other than the truth?), _not_ crying. Tears were a body’s natural reaction to pain and being punched in the face repeatedly by someone twice your size tended to produce pain. They were impossible to control and stemmed purely from the bruises purpling his eye and the blood flowing freely from his nose and not tender causes like hurt feelings and damaged pride.

The house he shared with his mother and brother was a Mannish dwelling, atypical of the homes of the Blue Mountains which were carved into the hillsides. It was made of wood, which held the heat and moisture better for their looms and spindles, made the thread less likely to break. Also caused his hair and beard to frizz and puff in the worst way, but there was one advantage to living in such a place: unlike most dwarrow-dwellings, there was more than one way in.

The window in Víli’s room did not close properly. The chinks were stuffed with rags during the winter months, but the evenings were still warm enough that he hadn’t bothered. It was easy enough to slide open from the outside and Nori was an expert by now. When he first began his routine of slipping in and out at all hours, he would take special care to move silently, first tossing his boots outside so he could creep by on silent feet. Apparently he was not as careful as he could have been since, after about a month of comings and goings, Víli shoved his trunk under the window which made entering and exiting much easier for Nori than it had been.

The lodger never said anything about it, only made one comment before he left for work one day about how well he slept the night before with no mice scurrying around to rouse him. Irpa looked at him strangely and asked why he hadn’t informed her of a rodent problem.

“Dealt with it in me own way,” he said, smiling so charmingly that his landlady thought no more about it.

Regardless of the fact that the miner was of low intellect, pursued banal interests and drank half his weight in beer nightly, Nori did _like_ him after a fashion. Mostly because he thought Víli liked him, which was a rare thing in his experience. He was an odd one out among his peers, one of the few very young dwarflings to survive their years in the wilderness through the settlement in the Blue Mountains. As such, he was not quite old enough to find friends with dwarves who were of age, but he was too old to play and run about with the younger children.

So Nori coped by making odd acquaintances in places where no one asked his age, Mannish pubs, sometimes where one Dwarf was much the same as any other and having hair on your chin meant you were always old enough to drink or throw coin away on a card game.

With a stealth wrought of practice, Nori silently got his usual window up and lifted himself onto the sill, wiggling on his stomach until his hands touched the top of Víli’s truck. He nimbly got his legs over his head and stood on feet that barely thumped as he hit the ground. The routine was so familiar to him that it did not occur to the young dwarf that he was coming home much earlier than was his wont. One of his eyes was rapidly swelling shut and half-blindness made it easy to miss the light seeping in under the crack in the doorway from the sitting room. Although Nori was quiet as quiet could be, silence mattered little when he eased the door open on its hinges and found himself face to face with his mother who was knitting before the fire.

“Lost a fight?” she asked, looking surprised, but only because her son was coming in so early. Nori did not say anything in response, the look of dumbfounded shock on his face at finding another sentient being up and about rendered him momentarily speechless. It would have been funny if half his head wasn’t swelling up like a toad. “You’re lucky I’ve just put the kettle on, nice hot water will wash those wounds out, we can leave your shirt and coat to soak overnight.”

Laying aside her knitting, Irpa took the kettle off the fire and poured some of the steaming water into a bowl, fetching a washcloth from the kitchen. Nori did not move from the doorway.

“Sit,” she said, gesturing to a footstool in front of her chair. Nori obeyed; Irpa was not the sort of woman one said no to.

Not that she was particularly robust, by the standards of their race. She was slender, with a long face, hooked nose, high cheekbones and long, lithe fingers. Nori did not think about his mother in such terms, but she had an exotic beauty about her, compared to the broad, strong features most dwarrowdams sported. Her hair, a shimmering color somewhere between amber and ruby, was plaited back away from her face and her beard was usually tucked up into clasps to prevent its being sewn into her work (a lesson she learned the hard way when she was around Nori’s age).

Irpa was not one of those individuals who was stunning on first glance, but she did have a way about her that kept the menfolk looking long after she passed them by. By the second glance, they would be burning to know her name. By the third, a fair number would lay their weapons down at her feet, if she asked them to.

“There we are,” she said, sitting back in her chair and taking her son’s face in her hands with a low whistle. “That’s quite an eye you’re sporting. Care to tell me what it was about? Did you throw the first punch, at least?”

“Our lodger is an idiot,” Nori grumbled, knowing she wanted the whole explanation. “They all are, he is and so is his fat friend. And his friend with the hat.”

Taking this information in, his mother gently cleaned the blood from her son’s face and observed, “Last week they had names, did they not?”

“Well, last week they didn’t make it their business to torment me - no, that’s not right, they did,” his face burned red as he recalled the thousand little indignities he’d suffered at their hands over the years. “They’re always mocking me, calling me ‘young Nori,’ as though I’m some annoying little dwarfling chasing ‘round after them and _tonight_ , the golden-haired drunkard played a song to spite me. So I punched him in his big stupid mouth and...well, I didn’t think he was much of a fighter. I was wrong.”

Irpa listened carefully to her son’s complaints, trying to keep her expression serious, but a smile lurked at the edge of her mouth. “Dearest...” she began slowly. “Do you think, maybe, they tease you like that because they’re fond of you?”

It was clear from the first that this possibility never entered Nori’s head. “No, they do it to irk me,” he replied immediately.

“Aye, that’s probably true,” she agreed. “But, I don’t think they mean it in a cruel way, more a having fun way. Like...brothers, almost. Brothers tease all the time.”

Nori gave his mother an incredulous look. “Dori doesn’t tease, he criticizes.”

“Your own brother’s not a teasing sort,” Irpa admitted, stroking Nori’s hair and untying his braids that were pulled out in the brawl. “Be that as it may, I’ve heard it said most are. Now, I don’t know personally, being my parents’ only, but I get the sense that’s how it is most cases. Anyway, let’s hope it’s a brotherly sort of feeling Vili harbors for you and he’s not too annoyed over the brawl, otherwise we’ll be out the rent money.”

It also did not occurred to Nori at the time that making a flying leap at their lodger could have consequences for his family’s livelihood. “Oh,” he said, eyes wide and flickering to the door that led to Vili’s room. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“No doubt you weren’t,” his mother nodded, ruffling his hair fondly. “You’re young, passions run high, of course you weren’t. I’m not too worried, though, he’s a good lad and he wouldn’t be a Dwarf if a little scrape was enough to make him pack his bags and find other lodgings. And - doubt me as you will - I’ve no doubt he cares enough for you that he won’t hold a grudge.”

Nori was quiet for a while as his mother re-tied his braids and fetched something cold to put on his eye and lip to ease the swelling, contemplating his mortality. Was it possible to die of embarrassment? For it had not been Víli and his pack of buffoons, but the Lady Dís and her brother their King and _Dwalin_ , of all dwarves. He hoped Dori’s needles stayed sharp for months because he was in no hurry to return to their forge now. Dís would tease him mercilessly and Thorin would look on him scornfully and Dwalin would probably just laugh himself sick every time he saw him.

The fight, such as it was, replayed over and over in his mind and Nori felt more humiliated by the second. Sure, he’d shed a bit of blood, but the second Víli tackled him to the ground, it was all over. The miner was not particularly tall, but he was broad, arms and back thick with muscle. He had to weigh twice what Nori did and though his blows were clumsy, they were heavy. He ran his tongue over his teeth; miraculously, none of them were loose.

“Here you go,” Irpa said, giving Nori a cold compress. “Hold that over your eye and before you go to bed, wash your mouth with salty water - you didn’t lose any teeth did you?”  


“Didn’t lose anything except my pride,” he said glumly.

Chuckling, his mother patted her youngest on the head. “Oh, dearie, don’t worry about your pride until you’re at least my age. Otherwise you won’t be able to walk down the street without fighting with half the folk you meet and you’ll never get any work done.”

“Got in a lot of fights when you were my age?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Then he winced because it hurt, so he schooled his face into a neutral expression once again.

“Plenty,” she nodded. “But I always tried to pick a fight I knew I could win.”

Something his mother said brought a memory to the forefront of his mind, a comment Dwalin made...by the axes of his ancestors, it must have only been six hours ago, but it felt much, much later. “Did you do a sword dance when you were young?”

Irpa seemed surprised by the question, “Of course I did! What a thing to ask.”

“What was it like?”

Smiling at the fond memories, Irpa sighed happily and said, “Oh, it was...well, I can’t really describe it. I was excited, but very nervous. Went off without a hitch, the other lass was badly bruised in the end and I could hardly see for the blood in my eyes. It was wonderful. My father, he was so proud, I remember he had tears flowing down into his beard, the Healers had to pry him off me so they could patch up the gash in my head.” Tilting her head down to look at her son she asked, “Why do you want to know? It’s not like you to bring up ancient history.”

Rolling his eyes, Nori said, “You’re not _ancient_ , Ama.”

“I suppose not,” she replied. “But what brought this on? Know some lassies who want to give it a go? It isn’t done here the way it was at home.”

“I know that,” he huffed. “It’s all anyone’s been talking about, first Víli asks me about it and Dwalin gets his dander up because I told him I couldn’t really remember seeing any.”

Irpa’s mouth curved downward slightly and her eyes became sad and thoughtful. “You wouldn’t, would you?” she sighed. “Just another one of our traditions shed on the roadside, I suppose. How would those miners know about it, I wonder.”

Nori wondered too. He was looking forward to Durin’s Day, it meant a day off from working under his brother’s thumb - he’d not given a thought to where Dori was, he was just pleased he wasn’t home - and a night of drinking and carrying on...of course, now he wasn’t sure who he’d be carrying on _with_ , but he had five more days to make new friends.

Then again, that might not be necessary. The front door opened with a bang and their lodger, stumbling slightly over the doorjamb, made his way to the younger dwarf with confusion written all over his face.

“Where’d you scarper off to, eh?” Víli demanded, taking Nori by the shoulders. “I was going t’buy you a drink, lad!”

Irpa beamed at her son with a motherly ‘I told you so’ look in her eyes. “Tea, I think,” she said to no one in particular.

“Buy me a drink?” Nori asked skeptically. There was dried blood in Víli’s beard at the corners of his mouth and his hair looked like a bird’s nest, but other than that he seemed unscathed.

Nodding vigorously, he said, “Yep, winner’s right...ugh, that was a bad idea.” The rapid up-and-down motion made the room spin and as Víli went to sit in Irpa’s chair, he misjudged the distance and crashed to the floor.

“How much did you have to drink?”

“...lots,” the miner replied, blinking up at Nori stupidly. “Bad idea, I’ve got work on the morrow and all. Lots of fun that’ll be, feelin’ rough, listenin’ t’the clanking o’the picks an’ th’mattocks.”

Irpa returned then, pushing a hot cup of tea into her lodger’s hands and another into her son’s. “There you are, dears.”

“Ta very much,” Víli muttered, taking a sloppy slip. “Oi, missus?”

“Yes, dear?” Irpa asked patiently.

“Sword dancing.”

“Yes?”

Víli did not say anything, just shook his head and said, “Them lasses are... _troublesome,_ ” as though that explained everything.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

Nori snorted into his tea and gave Víli a piercing look. “This is about Dís, isn’t it?”

“Of course!” the miner howled suddenly, tossing the rest of his tea back as if it was another mug of ale. “It’s always about her! She and Hervor and their Erebor ways. Not good enough, am I? ‘Course not, not for the likes o’her. She’s _perfect_.” And he moaned, putting his head in his hands.

“Ah,” Irpa said, understanding everything clearly. She took the now empty cup away from Víli and went to refill it.

Nori stared at Víli, mouth opening and closing like a beached codfish. This was what drove him to drink himself silly? Pining after a girl? That settled it, Nori was never going to set his sights on any lass to court, it turned otherwise rational people into raving morons. “Er...” he began finally, when Víli’s despairing posture showed no signs of straightening. One of his hands reached out tentatively to pat him on a large, round shoulder. “Erm. There, there.”

“You’re a good egg, young Nori,” Víli announced, raising his head looking at him with fond, bloodshot eyes. “A good egg. Diamond in a coal mine, you are.”

“Erm...thanks?” he replied, wondering why on earth people only complimented him when they were drunk. “Maybe you should get to bed. Longer you have to sleep it off the better, eh?”

“Brilliant!” Víli said too loudly, staggering to his feet and promptly falling down again. “You’re brilliant, young Nori! Either be a lordmayor or a thief with them wits o’yours.”

“Up we get,” Irpa said, hurrying into the room and laying the second cup of tea on the seat of the chair. She helped tug Víli to his feet and talked to him as they walked. “You do realize my playing nursemaid to tipsy tenants is not covered under the rent, dear?”

“Aye, missus.”

“I think another five ought to cover it, don’t you?”

“Aye, missus.”

Irpa smiled and deposited the young dwarf on the bed, tugging his boots off as she did so, “Oh, good, I’m so pleased we’re seeing eye-to-eye. I’ll just leave the tea on the bedside table.”

A snore was her only reply, but it sounded affirmative enough.

Nori went up to bed a few minutes later. His head was still pounding from the beating he’d taken, but his thoughts were racing. Dís and Hervor were plotting a sword dance and the besotted fool wanted to know more about it. It was stupid, really, that he would get so worked up over a trifle.

But _was_ it a trifle? Nori’s mind kept conjuring up the image of his mother’s face, how fierce and proud she looked when she talked about her own coming of age on Durin’s Day. And how sad she seemed when he said he could not remember the particulars of the ritual.

Nori was not a selfless dwarf. His motives were rarely altruistic, he always acted in his own best interest first and foremost and so he did now, even if his motivations were a muddle. Perhaps he wanted to be treated more like an adult than a child. Or maybe he wanted to be owed a favor by a member of the royal family to call in later. Or it could be he simply wanted to see his mother smiling proudly at him for once.

Whatever the reason, he rose bright and early the next day and made his way to the smithy in the pre-dawn light. His face still bore the marks from the ructions of the previous night and some dwarves who were at the pub and witnessed his defeat hid smiles behind their hands as he passed. Nori ignored them.

Dís was lifting the awning on their stall when he arrived, quite alone as her brother and cousin were inside getting the fires stoked. Nori tugged at her arm and rose up to press his mouth against her ear. “Do you two need a drummer?”

Her face was all confusion for a moment, but the dawning light of comprehension made her grin as brightly as the sun that was coming up over the horizon. “If it’s an offer of your own services you’re making, young Nori,” she whispered, “we’d be honored to take you up on it.”


	6. Chapter 6

Bombur was not the most graceful Dwarf in the Ered Luin, it was nearly impossible for him to ‘sneak’ anywhere, but for the second day in a row he rose before the sun and attempted to do just that. Bofur, still sleeping off the effects of half a barrel of mead, snored loudly in the bed next to him. He was so exhausted when they stumbled home the night before that he’d not even taken his hat off before he dressed for bed. Now it lay alongside him beneath the covers, hugged tight to his chest like an oddly shaped stuffed toy.

Bombur took in the sight for a moment before he smiled and shook his head, fixing his hair and beard for the day. He loved his elder brother with all his heart, but sometime he was damned peculiar.

Boots in hand he shuffled (nearly) silently to the door, but found his attempt thoroughly thwarted by the sight of Bifur standing over the fire, stirring a pot of porridge. His cousin’s head swiveled to the left sharply, but his posture relaxed when he saw Bombur standing in the doorway holding his boots. “ **You are awake early this morning** ,” he observed. “ **Too early for breakfast.** ”

Bombur shrugged and replied, “ **I did not sleep soundly.** ” Bifur could understand the common tongue as well as he ever had, but when they were quite alone Bombur thought it was only polite to speak Khuzdul to his cousin as often as possible. It was frustrating for him not to be able to use the idioms that once rolled off his tongue so quickly. Khuzdul was a beautiful, but severe language, made for the fathers of their race when the world was young. It did not lend itself well to joking or casual speech, which was practically all Bifur spoke in the time before his injury. This...impediment made him seem cold and aloof to those who did not know him.

Bifur’s smile was warm, despite the limitations of his speech in conveying fondness for his young cousins. “ **Bad dreams?** ” he asked sympathetically. “ **Or your brother’s moaning?** ”

“ **You heard that?** ” Bombur asked, glancing back at the closed door of the room he shared with Bofur. It was one thing for him to keep his brother up half the night whinging about vexsome dwarrowdams and their intriguing secrets, but restful sleep still eluded Bifur some nights and they had no right to keep him up with nonsense.

Bifur nodded, but he smiled again and Bombur knew he was not too troubled by them. Not that he would ever say so if he was, their cousin was good as gold to them and had been ever since they were young dwarflings. Gesturing for his cousin to sit down, Bifur replied, “ **Not last night, only sleep sounds. I went to bed early.** ”

“ **Wise of you,** ” the younger dwarf acknowledged, lacing his boots up. “ **It was a very...** ,” he had to switch to Westron, for the moment, “...messy **evening at the mead hall.** ” Not that Bildr’s establishment was a _hall_ in the strictest sense of the word, more a largish room without enough chairs, stools or benches to accommodate a real crowd, but Bifur got the point.

Porridge sufficiently thickened, he served up a helping to Bombur, with honey, as he preferred it. The red-bearded lad made the sign for ‘thanks’ at his cousin before he tucked into his breakfast, which Bifur responded to with a rough ruffling of his hair. There was only a small patch of table for Bombur to eat upon, the rest was covered with carved figures, some completed, others only in need of a coat of paint and still more half-formed and unfinished.

“ **You _have_ been busy** ,” Bombur observed approvingly, picking up one of the finished figures and turning it over in his hand. These would sell well during the holiday, when parents were especially eager to treat their children (or else were not drunk enough to ignore the pleas of dwarflings who needed some fearsome Orc figures to set against their warriors). The Orcs certainly looked fierce, teeth bared like animals, clubs and blades outstretched. Almost gruesome. The children would _love_ them. **“It would have been better to remain here and aid you, rather than spend coin on drink.** ”

Bifur shook his head, bringing his own bowl to the table, “ **No, you are young, it is good to make merry with friends**.” He took a spoonful of porridge and added, almost as an afterthought. “ **Savor it, for as I hear tell, you are soon to be married.** "

Bombur nearly spit his breakfast all over his cousin’s lovingly carved toys. Instead, he choked, causing an entirely too amused looking Bifur to give him a few hard thumps on the back to clear his airways. “ **I am not going to be married! My brother is a liar,** ” he protested between gulps of air.

“ **Do not be so inflamed,** ” the older dwarf said, dark eyes shining with repressed laughter. “ **I did not mean to upset you so, my boy, but it was told me -** “

“ **Liar,** ” Bombur muttered darkly. Then added to himself, “See if I buy him lunch today.” It seemed only fair that he should, since his brother insisted on paying for half his drinks the night before, but now that he knew Bofur spilled the beans about his minor infatuation with the loveliest girl in the Ered Luin, he began to think he was owed those drink.

Bifur grinned and went back to his breakfast. “ **It was not your brother who said anything - or have you forgotten coming home last night? Will there be any ale left for the festival or did you consume it all at Bildr’s?** ”

Casting his mind back to that murky time between stumbling out of the pub and falling into bed, Bombur was horrified to realize that he _had_ been carrying on about Thyra to his family. Indeed, the words, “I need to get to courting before someone else does,” and, “She’s just so _soft_ , you have no idea!” were uttered more than once.

The sickened look on his younger cousin’s face was too much for Bifur to handle and he laughed out loud. It did not distress Bombur overmuch to hear it; even if his cousin’s speech and manners were slightly altered now, his laughter was the same as ever it was. “ **Do not be grieved** ,” he said, patting his cousin’s hand consolingly. “ _ **She** _**did not hear.** ”

Oh, well, he hoped she had not for Durin’s sake. As the night wore on and his tongue loosened, he was finally able to speak to her without stammering or blushing. Apparently, the level of intoxication necessary to speak normally with Thyra meant he felt free to spill his guts to those he was closest to. It was a thin line to walk, a delicate balance and Bombur was an unusually clumsy dwarf to begin with.

Bifur took his now empty plate away; since he was unable to return to work in the mines, he took it upon himself to do the lion’s share of the housework. Equitable distribution of labor, Bombur supposed, since he and Bofur spent their days in the mines, but sometimes he thought his cousin was simply concerned about them breaking the plates. Getting to his feet, Bombur took up his pickaxe and made for the door. “ **I will tell your brother you left early - and to bring silver for his midday meal** ,” Bifur said, then, as an afterthought, added, “Bombur?”

His cousin paused in the doorway, expectantly.

“ **Bid her good morning on my behalf** ,” he winked.

For a fellow with an axe in his head, Bifur could be awfully perceptive.

The roads were dark and the air chill with the promise of winter in its icy breath. That was probably why Durin’s Day Eve was such a time of revelling; soon after it passed, the ground would harden and the winds would whip and the snow would fall and the only way to keep warm on lonely nights would be the memory of the bonfire and the dancing.

As he drew closer to the pasty cook’s, smoke curling out of the chimney blue-gray against a black sky, dotted with stars, it seemed to Bombur that someone was beginning the songs a mite early. A high, sweet voice was singing within, so loudly that the chime of the bell was all but drowned out when he opened the door.

“Too-ry-ay, fol-de-diddle-day  
Di-re fol-diddle, Dai-rie-oh

Then I got up and I made the bed  
I made it nice and aisy  
Then I got up and I made the bed  
I made it nice and aisy  
Then I got up and I laid me down  
Sayin’, 'Laddie, are ye able?'

With me too-ry - ah! Good morrow! Didn’t hear you come in!”

Thyra smiled and embarrassment, coupled with the heat of the bake shop, turned her cheeks red. Her tunic was short to avoid dragging in the fire and her arms caked up to the elbows in flour, which streaked her face as she smoothed her dark blonde hair back. “Alone this morning? I hope your brother isn’t unwell after what he consumed last night.”

Bombur smiled nervously and cleared his throat before replying, “Aye, he’s still abed.” And then he could think of nothing else to say. Bofur was the talker in the family, he’d carry on a conversation with a stone if there was no better company to be had, but Bombur...well, when his brother could be counted on to do his share of the talking, why open his mouth? That was why he’d taken care to come alone, so that he could have the chance to speak for once. What a disappointment it was to find he had nothing to say.

Thyra smiled again and him and Bombur smiled back and they stood like that for a moment, just...smiling at one another when the bell rang again and in walked Hervor with her arms full of paper-wrapped parcels. “Delivery’s here,” she sang out, dumping them all on the counter in front of Thyra. “G’morning m’lovely,” she said to her and, belatedly noticing Bombur added, “you too. Where’s your brother at? Sleeping it off?”

“Hardly!” Bofur’s voice sounded with the tinkling of the bell as he and Víli strode into the shop, arm in arm. The latter looked as though he needed the support; he’d drunk twice as much as anyone last night so it was not surprising. “Up bright and early, me - not as early as Bombur. Looking to get in before cockcrow and make a bit o'extra coin? Wise.”

“Swilled enough of it away last even, we did,” Víli smiled tiredly. “And...I think I owe me landlady a bit more than usual this month.”

Hervor snorted. “There’s an increase in rent for every strike you land on her son?”

“Something like that,” Víli shrugged.

“Did you tell her he threw the first punch?” Thyra asked curiously.

The sleepy-looking miner shrugged, then yawned enormously, jaw cracking. “Might’ve done. Dunno. S’all a bit of a blur today.”

The baker’s daughter smiled and shook her head, going into the back to fetch the lads their usual lunch order, fresh from the ovens. “Why’d you get up and away so early?” Bofur asked his brother. “Not even so much as a ‘good morning’ to your favorite brother!”

“Only brother,” Bombur reminded him, but he was unable to summon a smile at the old joke.

Bofur cocked his head at his brother, brows coming together and forming a thin line of worry. Bombur seemed...a bit droopy today, but not for the obvious causes. He was puzzling over what might be the reason for his younger brother’s unhappiness when Thyra re-emerged from the back room bearing the sack that held their lunch. “There you are - and these are fresh, so you’ll have to pay for ‘em,” she said placing the parcels in Bombur’s hands.

As his brother, gone quiet as ever around her, fumbled in his pockets for payment, Bofur understood his reason for leaving the house like a thief in the night and started tugging Víli toward the door. His friend stumbled over his feet and gave the dark-haired dwarf a very odd look. “What’re you doing?” he asked, confused.

Bofur twitched his head in Bombur and Thyra’s direction, obviously indicating that the young folks should be left to themselves, but Víli’s ability to read volumes in the random jerking of his friend's hat flaps was severely diminished after a night of hard drinking. “What?” he asked again, looking over his shoulder.

“Feels heavier than usual,” Bombur commented, weighing the sack in his hands.

Thyra smiled and ducked her head bashfully. “Well, I may have sneaked a few extras in there. To soak up the ale that might still be sloshing around in your bellies.” The dwarrow-lad reached into his pockets for some extra money, but Thyra stopped him, laying one of her hands over his. “No, no charge! Consider it...repayment. For my making you eat half-stale bread yesterday.”

Bombur smiled. Thyra smiled. And everyone around them smiled as well, Hervor coughing into her hand to hide her giggles. Because it was _obvious_ , wasn’t it?

And so it was. To every dwarf in the Blue Mountains aside from Bombur and Thyra. The latter waved them off to work with a sigh when the bell stopped jingling after the lads took their leave. The former’s broad shoulders slumped as he handed the bag of food to his brother - and a Bombur who willfully gave his food to another was an unhappy Bombur indeed.

“Cheer up, lad,” Víli said, clapping him on the back, some of his usual joviality returning as they left the pastry shop. “Trust me. She’s _smitten._ ”

“I’ve never spoken five words together to her,” Bombur lamented.

Bofur shrugged and put his arm around his younger brother’s shoulders. “Eh, that just makes you...makes you...help me out here, Víli.”

“Er...stoic?” he ventured, putting his own free arm around Bombur’s shoulders on his other side. “Mysterious?”

“Exactly!” Bofur said nodded. “Mysterious. Like one o’them Rangers you hear tell of in the market.”

Bombur was a dwarf of little imagination, so little that he could not even begin to imagine himself as a Ranger. Furthermore, he was not sure how picturing himself as a wandering vagabond of a Man was supposed to make him feel better about the fact that Thyra probably thought he was a near-mute idiot. Ironically, while he regretted speaking too little in her presence, she thought she’d said entirely too much that morning.

“I was singing about taking a lad to me _bed_ ,” Thyra moaned, hiding her face in her hands and covering her cheeks with flour in the process. Hervor no longer bothered to hide her giggles and guffawed quite openly at her friend’s dismay. “It’s not funny!”

“Oh, but it is,” Hervor corrected her. “As though that’d make him think less of you!” Stroking her beard, she grinned wickedly and said, “Actually, probably helped your cause with him. What lad doesn’t want a lass who’ll sing bawdy songs to wake herself up of a morning? Promises of what’s to come, eh?”

The last thing the three miners heard before they passed too far away from the village was the sound of a young woman’s voice raised in an indignant shout. It was the usual sound that came of applying a skillet with no little force to a cheeky dwarrowmaid’s backside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Thyra sings is "As I Roved Out" and the lyrics are from the Loreena McKennitt version. Also, young!Bombur looks exactly like the Bombur from the Hillywood "An Unexpected Parody" video on YouTube. Apologies for the distinct lack of Durins in the last two chapters, but they get an awful lot of play, don't they? Let's give the Broadbeams some time to shine!


	7. Chapter 7

Sometimes, Thorin would turn around in the forge and _swear_ Frerin was standing right behind him. Those moments were fleeting and he shaken off as quickly as they came, but there was no mistaking the feeling that his heart was lighter, about the fly out of his chest on light wings. The hurt he felt afterwards when he recalled that he would never see his brother’s face again was physical, like a great hand reached behind his ribs and squeezed all the air from his lungs. He would pause. Catch his breath. Then continue his work as though nothing at all happened.

Thorin liked to believe that he kept his emotions fairly well controlled. The only one he ever expressed in public with any regularity was anger. He was an uncommonly angry young dwarrow with no outlet for his rage and he had a lot to be angry about. Nearly all his kin were dead or gone, he was a prince of Durin’s line sweating his youth away to pay his rent and his birthright was jealously guarded by a fire-drake whose plumes of smoke still billowed from the mountaintop. Wolves and wargs did not attack the village with nearly enough frequency for him to spend his unhappiness in bloodshed. If he personally destroyed all the foul beasts that plagued the land and all the rivers and streams turned black and brackish with their blood, it would still not be enough to quench his thirst for vengeance.

It was in those moments, when his anger and regret were like a black bile threatening to poison him that he’d see something out of the corner of his eye and all he knew to be true would fall away and for a brief second the heartache would ease. If he was a more faithful dwarf, he might fancy that it was indeed his brother, longing to reach through the veil of death, sling an arm over his shoulder and chuckle in his ear, _You need to_ breathe _more, brother,_ but Thorin did not believe in ghosts, not really.

Just as likely he was losing his mind.

“You’re burning your hand,” Dwalin observed helpfully and Thorin started, laying down the tongs he’d grasped without gloves and failed to let go of before they began blistering his fingers. Their skin was tough enough to handle hot metal, but not indefinitely.

“Damn,” he grumbled, shaking his hand out, frowning at the raised red bumps. He hadn’t been so careless since he was a dwarfling apprentice in Erebor.

“Got something on your mind?” his friend asked, cocking his head to the side.

Thorin smiled wryly, dipping his fingers in a cold bucket of water to ease the throbbing pain. “If I do, I should follow your example and pack myself off to the pub. How’s your head?”

“I didn’t drink as much as all that,” Dwalin groused. Getting out of bed that morning hadn’t been a pleasant prospect, Balin threw his blankets off him and dragged him off by his feet, but Thorin didn’t need to know that. Dís came in the side entrance with an armful of wood, pausing when she saw her brother’s arm half-sunk in a bucket.

“Did you burn yourself?” she asked, trying not to smirk. She’d singed the sleeve of her tunic only two weeks before and had to put up with Thorin’s chiding her to be more careful. Tunics were replaced more easily than fingers and she _dearly_ wanted to tell him so, but affection and respect held her tongue - to a point. “How much did _you_ have to drink last night?”

“Not as much as that miner of yours,” Thorin shot back irritably. “Lad can’t hold his liquor, turning over the table like that. If he had to fight Irpa’s son, ‘least he could have done was leave everyone’s drinks out of it.”

“That wasn’t drunkenness, it was enthusiasm,” Dís informed him. “Anyway, he’s not _my_ miner, he’s _a_ miner. I don’t give him his wages.”

Dwalin grunted and took up his hammer, “You pay him well enough. If coy looks and particular smiles were gold, he’d be a rich fellow.”

Feeding the fire, Dís raised an eyebrow at Dwalin. “And what does that mean?” she asked, but he drowned her out, beating a steel blade into submission with more force than was strictly necessary. Rolling her eyes, she straightened up and walked over to Thorin who was squinting at his fingers dolefully. **I will wrap them,** she signed, since it was his dominant hand he managed to injure.

They kept a roll of bandages and a bottle of salve in the shop for just such incidents, though Thorin was less clumsy than his sister and cousin and usually had far less cause to use them. “Let’s see, then,” she said when he could hear her better.

With a small half-smile, Thorin extended his hand and let Dís rub the salve in, clucking her tongue in a big show of exasperated disapproval. The expression and tone so mirrored their mother than Thorin could not help commenting, “Playing at being Ama, are you?”

His sister raised her head and laughed. “You’re both in a mood. Dwalin’s accusing me of paying special mind to the miner, now you’re telling me I remind you of Ama. Are you trying to tell me something? Do you want me married and out of the house?”

“No,” Thorin and Dwalin spoke as one and Dís laughed.

“Heard _that_ , did you?” Dwalin paused a moment, then went back to hammering and ignored her again. He’d been acting damn peculiar since they went hunting the day before and Dís had no idea why. If she thought Thorin might know, she would ask, but neither he nor Dwalin were exactly forthcoming with their emotions. It probably wasn’t anything important, anyway, he likely ordered a new coat to be made and it was taking longer than he planned. When Thorin’s fingers were bandaged she gave his hand a pat and proclaimed brightly, “There! Good as new.”

“Thanks,” her brother said, ruffling her hair with his good hand. The injury was not bad enough that he could not work and so the three of them toiled away for the rest of the afternoon, rarely speaking or signing to one another, each wrapped up in their own private thoughts.

Theirs wasn’t a family that spoke of feelings overmuch. There simply hadn’t been time. Their mother and father were of a proud, stoic nature, though Ama was more outwardly affectionate than Ada ever was. Frerin was the exception. He did not speak of what he was feeling, he didn’t have to, he was a dwarf who wore his heart on his sleeve. Whether he was happy, angry, sorrowful, everyone around him knew about it and his moods were catching. Usually, he was jovial, joking and trying to coax everyone else around him into his mirth, making them smile whether they wanted to or not.

Thorin was especially susceptible to his brother’s brand of magic. Frerin had a sense for when his eldest sibling was brooding more than was good for him or when a bout of melancholy was on the verge of turning into their father’s perpetual depression. With a well-timed grin or a bad joke, Frerin could usually draw him into chatter and, sooner than his brother would have thought possible, to laughter. Thorin protected them bodily, fought for them and would have died for his family. So too would Frerin, but he had a strength beyond all that. He protected their souls from getting too bogged down in misery.

When he died, he took their mother’s laughter with him, for Dís remembered her smiles but rarely in the Blue Mountains and had all but forgotten what her laugh sounded like. Ama _hated_ it there and didn’t much care for Dís’s friends either. She hardly ever left the house in the last year or two before she died, though the bare walls of their spartan quarters depressed her spirits more than their decades of wandering had. Settlement suited Freya ill. It was a constant reminder that they might never regain their true home in either her or her children’s lifetimes. And now the first half of her miserable prediction had come to pass for she was buried in a simple tomb in the very hills she despised.

It would have been better if Frerin lived, Dís knew that as surely as she knew how hot a fire needed to be to bend metal or the color of her own eyes. He’d ever been the heart of the family. Thorin was the head, Frerin the heart. And what was she? The shadow. The tag-along. Underfoot and over shoulders. Like a parcel. Sure, she bandaged Thorin’s fingers when he burned them, but Frerin would have made her brother laugh about his wounds and it was a medicine more potent than an application of aloe and gauze strips.

When Hervor came to collect her that afternoon, her brother frowned and Dwalin said nothing. “Will you be home for supper?” Thorin asked.

“Probably late,” Dís responded, biting her lip as he nodded and turned away. _I’m trying to make you happy,_ she wanted whisper - wanted to scream. _It won’t be like it was, not exactly, but nearly as good. Won’t you smile?_ Instead, she sighed and hefted her axe and sword over her shoulders, shaking her head at Hervor when her friend asked if she was feeling alright.

It wasn’t until they were well away from the forge that Dís spoke. “He’s just so sad. Nearly all the time.” Thorin wouldn’t call it sorrow, he’d probably say he was angry, which was the only feeling outsiders thought dwarves capable of, but they’d be wrong. Her brother had his anger, but beneath that he carried bone-deep sorrow that wore on him, dimmed his eyes and drove his sister to despair.

Hervor nodded sympathetically and offered, “You’re good for him, though, I think.”

“Am I?” Dís asked, cocking her head and letting her hair slide into her face. “I don’t think so. I try not to make his life harder, but I don’t think I make it easier.”

Hefting a sigh of her own, Hervor adjusted her hold on her flail. “Aye, I understand. I feel the same way about my father. I can help out at the shop and keep the house tidy, but I can’t bring Ama back. Or Heidrek. And I think...nah, nevermind, it’s a dismal thought.”

“Today’s a day for dismal thoughts, it seems,” Dís said. “Let’s hear it.”

Hervor paused stared into the distance, speaking more to the mountains than to Dís. “Sometimes I think he’d be better off - happier, I mean - with Ama and Heidrek instead of me. If I could make a deal with some spirit, exchange myself for them...I don’t know if I’m selfless enough to do it, _really_ do it, but sometimes I dream about it.”

Dís never had. She didn’t think about life in those terms, trading lives for lives. A product of her youth and naivete, perhaps, but she never thought about exchanging one of her loved ones for another. She just wanted to wake up in the morning to find one of Frerin’s knees in her back while Thorin snored beside her, Ama shaking their arms and saying, “ _Get up, get up m’dears, dawn’s breaking_ ,” while her father shouted to gather the ponies and her grandfather shouted even louder not to rush, they were in no hurry.

All of them, hale and whole and together. Who could she trade? Not a one, not her parents, her brothers, her grandfather, nor even her cousins. Balin and Dwalin came as a set - she could not think of losing either of them without becoming short of breath. So did Glóin (although he had no sense of humor to speak of) and Óin. She’d spill her blood to save those she had and she’d sell her soul to bring those she’d lost back, but she would never be willingly parted from any who yet lived.

“I wouldn’t let you,” Dís told her. “Exchange you for them - that’s poor haggling.”

“Two for one?” Hervor asked, raising her eyebrows. “Sounds like a good deal for me.”

Shaking her head, the dark haired dwarrowlass replied, “Because you’re thinking quantity, not quality. Dwarf for dwarf doesn’t work since all aren’t made equal. Say we’ve got our baseline product - one dwarf, average height, build, no outstanding skills or traits to mark him out as special. You’re far more than that. Why, I’d say one Hervor is worth...let’s see. You’re a lass, making you worth at least as much as your mother, probably two of your brother. Red hair’s common enough, but yours has got those lovely curls, there’s another point in your favor. And you’re handy with a carving knife, never seen anyone skin an eel more swiftly than you. And you’re my dancing partner which makes you unfathomably valuable.” Nodding knowingly, Dís walked ahead of her companion a few steps, saying, “By my estimate, that friendly spirit of yours would have to return quite a few of our kin from the Halls of Waiting to come close to matching your worth. And throw in an emerald or two, just to even it out.”

“Sure, a few muddy emeralds would cover the rest,” Hervor took to her feet again, smiling now.

“Not hardly! Finest water or nothing,” Dís declared.

“You lassies talking about what you’ll wear in your hair?” Nori asked, jogging toward them, drum tucked under his arm.

Hervor’s smile widened into a full-fledged grin. “You’ve turned up! I’d never have believed it.”

If he was more reliable, Nori could have feigned indignation, but he knew himself and his reputation. Honestly, he was surprised himself when he snuck the drum out of the house and shimmied out Víli’s window on the pretence of taking a break from work to visit the necessary. He almost turned back twice, but the thought that he actually wanted to _finish_ something for once in his life drove him forward.

“At your service,” he bowed to her.

Hervor whistled appreciatively as the sun hit his face. “That’s quite an eye. Can you see out of it?”

“Not a bit,” Nori said, setting up his drum near an obliging log so he could sit on something as he played. “But there’s nothing wrong with my ears or hands. Come on, ladies, let’s see what you’ve got.”

What they had was not very impressive. When they were finished, they turned immediately to look at Nori, both slightly short of breath. The lad had his head cocked to the side and was stroking his chin contemplatively. “Not...exactly how I remember.”

Dís frowned, her frustration with herself and her inability to perform properly spilling over. “How _you_ remember? What exactly do you remember that wasn’t stuffing yourself sick on poppyseed cake?”

“It’s been coming back to me,” he replied haughtily. “I remember more blood and _definitely_ more clanging. It’s like you’re afraid of each other.”

The girls exchanged a look. Afraid? They who’d been over mountains and across an entire continent, who’d seen family and friends die under the spears of orcs and teeth of wargs, of cold and starvation, _they_ , afraid?

“Not hardly,” Hervor said, not nearly as convincingly as she wished to.

“You’re afraid of something, alright.”

The three young dwarves turned around with all the panic of being caught at something they weren’t supposed to be doing. Irpa was standing in the shade of a nearby tree, where she’d evidently been watching them with a patiently indulgent look on her face. “I thought Thyra said this place was secret,” Dís muttered to Hervor, limbs rigid and eyes wide.

“Maybe she doesn’t rightly know what that word means. Place can’t hardly be secret if you go blabbing about it it everyone,” her friend replied, edging slightly closer to Dís and trying to hide her axe behind her back. It never even occurred to her that Nori might have told his mother what they were up to because he looked as horrified as they did.

Irpa’s laughter was like the tinkling of bells, but to the young dwarves it was like a death knell. “The looks on your faces! Don’t worry, I haven’t brought half the town with me - even managed to keep your brother from following which was no easy feat,” she added to Nori who didn’t even have the decency to look chagrined. “I’d have thought you’d be pleased. Or don’t you remember, there are a few dwarrowdams who haven’t forgotten our ways.”

Irpa was distantly related to Dís’s family, but they were not so close that she thought her a likely source to confide her intentions to. Maybe the ties connecting the kindred of the mountain ran deeper than even she knew.

Neither girl knew what to say, Irpa just smiled at them and walked over, sitting down on the log next to her son. “So. What’s all this, then?”

Hervor and Dís looked at each other slightly helplessly. What _were_ they doing? “Erm. Well,” Dís said, then trailed off, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. “A few weeks ago, we got to thinking Durin’s Day’s coming up...”

“...and, we’re of age,” Hervor added, when it was clear Dís had nothing more to say for herself. “My father, ah, well. Got a bit...” weepy “...homesick. Not that he isn’t usually, but I suppose with me growing up, he’s missing all that I was meant to do. That he ought to have seen me do.” _Things my mother should have taught me._

“My brother’s the same way,” Dís said, though she thought it was so obvious that Thorin longed for their home every day that it hardly needed to be said out loud. “We’ve just - there’s so much I don’t know, that I haven’t done, but I remembered this. I _thought_ I remembered, anyway. It was something we could give back. A piece of home that’s not really lost.” _And I wanted to see him smile. I want him to stop longing, for a minute. He can’t become so sorrowful that he leaves me too, I won’t let him._

There was a thick silence until Nori spoke up, eyes fixed firmly on the ground, cheeks gone a little red. “They needed the help,” he muttered. _I just wanted to do something right for once._

Irpa’s warm eyes crinkled at the corners and she smiled at them so kindly that Dís and Hervor felt some of the tension slide from their limbs. “Ah, you sweet girls,” she said softly, not forgetting Nori and putting a hand on his shoulder. “That’s so lovely. Noble too, but you’re going about this all wrong. This can’t be about your brother or your father or the whole sorry lot of us. You’ve got to do this for _you_. It’s your dance. You need to be so stunning you make them forget the rest of the world exists.”

  
Clapping her hands briskly, Irpa rose from the bench, warm eyes gleaming now with excitement, "We've got five days. It's not a lot of time, but it is time. Let's get to work."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And as a follow-up to the adorable of the previous chapter, I thought, gee, let's see how Thorin feels about things. And this angst-fest is the result. Lucky for us, the 'Ri family is here to fix things.


	8. Chapter 8

Balin was never meant to be a schoolmaster. It wasn’t anything he’d been trained for, from birth it was expected that he would take his father’s place as head of the King’s Guard, leader the elite armed forces of Erebor, second only to the King himself. He had a knack for learning and storytelling, but that was all it was - a knack. His days were spent learning the secrets of warfare and his nights were devoted to poetry, literature and calligraphy, which was a hobby more than a formally-taught craft.

Yet here he was, giving instruction to the young folk of the mountain’s exiles as though he’d been playing the role of schoolmaster all his life. In certain ways, it was appropriate. It was to himself that Frerin and Dís went to learn their letters and history. He was his mother’s son as much as he was his father’s, the scholar and the warrior. There was a whole generation of young dwarves growing up without formal schooling and if no one volunteered to share what they did know, the traditions and knowledge of their people might fade away within the next few centuries. It was incredible to think what a difference only a few decades made in the education of the Erebor-born. He was fluent in the common tongue and Khuzdul, he was passable in two of the Elvish dialects and all the veterans of Azanulbizar knew at least some of the black tongue of their enemy. He was well-versed in their history, religion and literature, but who else among them could claim such an education? Groin, Óin, Irpa, to a lesser extent Dori, Thorin and Dwalin. Who had the time to pass their knowledge on? Who had the skill to teach?

It was to himself and Gróin that their people turned to when creating the engravings for funeral markers, ashamed children whose hearts were heavy that they were ignorant of the proper ways to inter their parents and grandparents. Children like Dís and Hervor, Nori and Glóin whose classrooms were open fields and drafty caves, who could neither read nor write the common tongue and could not tell the language of Elves from the speech of Orcs. Their histories were relayed around campfires, disjointed, incomplete, the cherished memories of a weary people. And what of those yet to be born? Who would have no memory of the Lonely Mountain to cling to, however dim, that would bring them to his table to learn what they could out of a fierce desire to claim whatever they could of their heritage, what of them?

Looking around at the few dozen tomes that made up his small library, he sighed and ran a hand through his grey, short-cut hair and felt, not for the first time, that he was woefully ill-prepared for the task.

After all, what did he have? An incomplete history of their people? A few religious and legal texts? Stories for children? They were precious, of course they were, dearly paid for or given as gifts from far-flung kin, but his mother held more knowledge in the confines of her mind than lined his shelves. The remarkable dwarrowdam could actually _converse_ in the black speech of orcs, a language few outside that foul race cared to learn, save a few basic commands often employed in battle. She used to speak it, when prompted, after getting giddy on too much mead during times of feasting.

If she had lived, would his father - may his ancestors forgive the insolence of the thought - have fought a little harder to stay alive? Dying in battle assured one a place in the Halls of Waiting, it was the proud eventual fate of all noble Dwarves, but was the promise sweetened by the thought of seeing her face again? Balin never loved like that, nor did he think he ever would. Ama meant the world to his father, she was the diamond in his treasure house. It was inevitable that not even death would separate them for long.

Shaking his head in an attempt to dislodge those dark thoughts, Balin sighed and counted out the gold and silver in his coin purse. Peddlers usually flooded the market around Durin’s Day, he might have enough to spare to purchase a few more books or scrolls this year. It might be a losing battle, but Balin was a warrior and he would fight.

There was an insistent knocking on the door and Balin looked up in surprise to see Thorin standing outside the door. It was only midday, he should have been at the forge. His first impulse was to worry that someone was ill or injured, but he dismissed that thought out of hand; Thorin would not have bothered knocking under such circumstances.

“One of the gears broke in the roundabout, Dwalin said he has a smaller wrench - ‘course he couldn’t tell me where it was,” Thorin smiled. “Mind if I have a look round?”

Balin drew his arm back in welcome. “Of course,” he replied cordially. “We wouldn’t want the children to be disappointed.”

Thorin snorted and shook his head, “Might be, if I can’t find that wrench.” The house Dwalin and Balin shared was even smaller than the home he maintained with his sister and had only one bedroom with two beds. Even if he’d never visited before, he would know Dwalin’s side of the room - the bed was larger and it looked as if half the room had been ransacked. Articles of clothing in varying stages of wear were strewn over the rumpled bed clothes, on the floor, over the top of a battered traveling truck which Thorin threw open without much ado.

Luckily, Dwalin was tidy where his tools and weapons were concerned. He had a kit of smaller tools for close work that he only brought to the forge when he was sure he would need them. As Thorin rifled through his brother’s things, Balin asked, “And where’s my fine brother to fetch his own tools?”

“Stayed behind at the forge to keep an eye on things,” Thorin said, unrolling a set of leather-wrapped pliers and tongs. “I was leaving anyway to fetch our meal - Dís dawdles at the baker’s and we’ve orders to keep up with. Best she has someone to remind her to stay on task.”

“Aye,” Balin nodded, but he was smiling slyly. “And who’s to keep _him_ on task, I wonder.”

Thorin rolled his eyes; Dís and Dwalin did have a tendency to spend more time trying to outwit the other in teasing than they did on their work. All their bickering was good-natured, he knew they were enormously fond of one another and it was one of the greatest pleasures in life to find bosom companions with which to practice one’s craft, but it was equally important to actually _work_ rather than chatter idly. “I’ll just keep ‘em late,” Thorin shrugged. “It’s not as though they’ve got pressing engagements elsewhere - well...never mind.”

Balin raised an eyebrow. “What? Something troubling you?”

Thorin did not often confide his feelings in others, but if there was anyone in the world he would open up to, it would be Balin who’d acted the part of elder brother to him as long as Thorin could remember. He was grown now and more inclined than ever to keep himself to himself, but there was something in the older dwarf’s kind eyes and reassuring smile that made him feel more inclined to unburden himself.

“It’s probably nothing,” he said, but Balin waited patiently until he continued. “Dís...has been going off by herself nights. With Hervor, Vigg’s daughter. It isn’t _troubling_ me, exactly, it’s only...” Thorin paused for a longer time, struggling to come up with a way to say, _’She used to pass her free time with me,’_ without sounding petulant. It was good that his sister had friends, he wanted her to be happy, but he did miss her, though he saw her every day.

“You think she’s courting?” Balin asked and Thorin started, nearly dropping the wrench he finally managed to locate. The thought never even occurred to him.

“No,” he replied immediately, shaking his head. “She’s too young.”

“A bit on the young side,” Balin allowed, “but not too young.”

Yet Thorin was still shaking his head. “Well, I can’t think of anyone she’s taken a shine to,” he said, which was not quite the case. Víli, the young idiot, was the subject of many a smile recently and sly bit of flirting - just flirting, not full-blown courting as far as Thorin could tell. Balin made an innocuous sort of humming noise that caused the younger dwarf to eye him suspiciously. “You know something I don’t?”

Balin laughed, “Not a thing. I just thought, if your sister spending time away from home was niggling at you, perhaps there was some romance afoot.”

Thorin smiled wryly, “And here I was thinking it was history books you picked up from the booksellers’ stalls. Hidden romance, indeed. You’re as bad as a fishmonger for gossip, do you subject your brother to this nonsense?”

“No,” Balin chuckled. “He has less patience for it than you.” Not to mention the fact that it would crack his dear brother’s heart if Balin speculated aloud that young Dís might have her eye on a local beau. Dwalin probably thought he was keeping his feelings very well in check, but Balin was clever about people and knew a besotted soul when he saw one. He could not miss the way his brother’s eyes settled on Dís when she was about. He looked at her like she was the only soul on earth who mattered, his smile was broader and laugh richer when she was in the room. It was a look he knew well, having seen it many a time on their own father’s face when he was with their mother.

Dwalin was even more tight-lipped than Thorin when it came to matters of the heart, he never told Balin of his desires, nor did he mutter them feverishly in his sleep. If Balin was not ever-vigilant about identifying things that made his brother happy, he might never have noticed himself. Once he determined that his brother was smitten, he took to watching Dís a bit more closely, but she seemed oblivious to his feelings and never showed anything more than the same familial love and fondness she’d always felt for him since she was a wee bitty thing toddling after her brothers and lisping her cousin’s name.

Perhaps Thorin was right and she was simply too young to think of such things, Balin vowed to say nothing about it. Warrior he was, scholar he aspired to be, but he was absolutely not a matchmaker by any stretch of the imagination. Thorin was straightening up now, closing the lid of Dwalin’s chest and piling his clothes back on top. “Thanks for letting me play the thief,” Thorin said as he made to leave. “Come over for supper tonight? I’ll see if I can’t get that sister of mine to remember she has family as well as friends to pass the evenings with.”

“Thank you, I will,” Balin replied. “But don’t be too hard on the lass if she doesn’t want to spend all of her time among us - as you say, she’s young. And you’re not so very aged yourself, lad. No need to be spending all your time with old men.”

“I’m not; I’ve invited you to supper, after all,” Thorin replied with a smile and left the house with the sound of Balin’s chuckles echoing after him. Despite his grey hair and beard, Balin was not even middle-aged, yet. He was a useful reminder to Thorin that, no matter how old he felt sometimes, he was still a young dwarf. Balin was one of the few of their people who called him ‘lad’ with any regularity.

Increasingly, he was referred to as ‘king.’ The title was a heavy mantle to bear, especially since some small, childish part of him insisted that he was _not_ a king. It was the same part of him that allowed him to sleep at night, the persistent hope that someday he would wake in the morning to see his father come striding through the door. 

Thráin had been missing for over ten years now, Thorin knew in his mind that his father was never coming back, but a tiny piece of his heart refused to accept that he was dead. Denial? Perhaps, but it was better termed a survival tactic than anything. As long as Thorin believed in some measure that his status as leader of his people was transitory, that he was only acting in his father’s stead until he returned and took up his rightful place as leader while Thorin retreated into the background and learned how to be a king, then he could go from one day to another, making the best decisions he could. If he stumbled, well, how much blame could be laid at his feet? He was not _truly_ their king, after all. Merely a prince playing a part until the real King Under the Mountain could claim his place.

Someday, Thorin would be king. Someday, when he was confident and unafraid. When he _felt_ like a king rather than a young dwarf who’d simply seen too much of hardship and suffering. That day was a long way off yet and so, Thorin reasoned, he was not King. These were not thoughts he ever gave voice to, if one of his people came to him in need he would never turn them away, helplessly declaring, _I’m sorry, you’re going to have to wait until the true King returns, I am only his son._ Such behavior would be cowardly and shame the memory of his father and grandfather.

No, he would never shirk from his duty during waking hours, but letting it all go at night helped him sleep. Dís, no matter how late she stayed out or how long she’d been away from home still kissed him every evening before bed saying, “Good night, brother. Sweet dreams.” And that was the thought he clung to as the fog of darkness crept into his mind and he willed the horrors away. Not a king. Just a brother.

And a smith with two wayward fellows whose irons were cooling on their anvils as they bickered about when, if ever, was the proper time to throw an axe.

“But if you’re desperate - “ Dís was saying.

Dwalin shook his head. “I’ll not hear such mad talk. Desperate, she says. Throw a knife - and take care that your enemy doesn’t wind up with a nasty bump and a new weapon to turn on you - if you _must_ , but axes ought to be treated with more care.”

“Thorin,” Dís addressed him with a plaintive note in her voice. “Whose side are you on?”

“The side of whoever it is finishes those barrel hoops so we’re not here until nightfall,” Thorin said. “Balin’ll be joining us for supper - and I expect you there tonight, lass, no excuses.”

“But - ” Dís began, though Thorin shook his head before she could get another word out.

“Hervor will survive passing the evening without you,’ he said firmly, but he was confused by the crestfallen look on his sister’s face. Did it mean so much to her to spend time with her friends over her family? A tiny pang of hurt passed through his chest, though he endeavored to ignore it. It was a selfish thought, but he did not like the idea that she was somehow tired of him after all these years.

“Ah, let her go,” Dwalin said unexpectedly. “Balin won’t take offense. S’only another...er,” he paused, glancing at Dís who looked at him with a mixture of surprise and gratitude. “Well. I expect it won’t be long ‘til you’re supping with us again, eh?”

“Won’t be long, no, Hervor...her Adad’s...just been busy. Preparing for the festival,” Dís said, eyes darting between Dwalin and Thorin. “It’s just the two of them, you know. She gets...lonely, sometimes.”

“She could always take meals with us,” Thorin remarked, looking at his sister closely. She was not _lying_ to him, he did not think she was lying, but he definitely got the sense that there was something Dís was keeping from him. There was that tightness in his chest again. Did she not trust him?

“Aye, I know, only...she doesn’t want to be a bother,” she replied, raising a shoulder in an awkward shrug. “But I’ll tell her you said so, see if she doesn’t change her mind.” Taking up her hammer, she smiled brightly and said, “So. Barrel hoops, eh?”

The smithy was filled with the congenial clanging of metal-on-metal as the three dwarves went about their various tasks, but unusually it was Thorin who moved the most slowly. He looked up every few minutes to look at Dís, hard at work. There was something she was keeping from him and though she was as entitled to her privacy as any other grown dwarf, he could not help the bitter feeling of inadequacy that coursed through him as he wondered just why she felt she had to keep secrets from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was only a matter of time before Thorin started getting suspicious, wasn't it? I hope he doesn't come across badly in this section, they're all awfully young and he has a _lot_ of responsibilities. The way he became king was pretty traumatizing, I'd be surprised if he wasn't plagued by doubts from time to time - especially since his sister doesn't have time for him anymore ;-)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few **warnings** for mild descriptions of the aftermath of **violence** , **physical injury** and alluded-to **surgical procedures**. Nothing really graphic or involved, but I just wanted to forewarn you this is not the lightest of chapters.

When Nori did not turn up that night to provide musical accompaniment both Dís and Hervor were disappointed, but neither girl was particularly surprised. Nights were falling quickly upon the mountains now, thus cutting the girls’ practice time perilously short.

“‘Least you might get home for supper now,” Hervor noted gloomily, well informed by now of Thorin’s odd new ‘eat with the family’ mandate.

“Aye,” Dís sighed wearily. “It’s not as though I expected he’d keep his word,” she added, lest Hervor think her hopelessly naive. She’d grown up with Nori as much as she had Hervor and her brothers. They were a tightly bonded group, the exiles of Erebor, first it was a matter of survival and then it became a matter of keeping their sanity. Suffering in solidarity was infinitely preferable to suffering alone. Her mother believed that maxim less and less as time went on. Her father never believed it and well...well.

Nori was something of a lost soul. Little more than an infant when the mountain fell, he had no true recollection of Erebor and her bounty, he’d grown up uncertain of when his next meal was coming or whether his mother and elder brother would find work in whatever town they stopped in. Too young to work and too old to be carried everywhere he was often left to his own devices and now that they had a settlement of sorts seemed to chafe at confinement. Dís liked him, he was an amusing fellow with his witty mind and sharp tongue, but she supposed it was folly to put her trust in him.

“Want to eat with us?” Dís asked her friend, dusting her trousers off and frowning at the new grass stains. “Thorin says you’re welcome.”

“Nah, thanks all the same,” she declined politely. “I don’t want Ada to eat alone.”

Dís nodded, grateful that she, at least, had Balin and Dwalin to ensure her brother would not be left too much on his own. He had their mother’s sense of duty and their father’s sense of melancholy. It was a weighty inheritance and one she did not want him to carry by himself. “Want company for the walk back?”

“I’ll not say no, if you’re offering,” Hervor smiled and the pair of them set off for home. After some preliminary chatter about their friends (‘What’re the chances on Bombur getting the nerve to ask Thyra to dance at the festival?’ ‘Ha! I’d put more money on your father’s old nag winning the horse races!’), Hervor blurted out, “I know it sounds stupid, what with all else we’ve got to do, but have you given any thought to what you’re wearing in your hair?”

The honest answer was no, Dís hardly thought of it. Aside from her tarnished silver clasps and beads she had nothing like the circlets and diadems the young women of yore plaited firmly against their brows when they danced.

“Haven’t got much to put in it, truth be told,” she admitted. They weren’t starving here in the Blue Mountains, but neither did they have the funds to purchase gold or jewels. Their clothes were plain, more suited for work than holding court and though Dís knew her mother was attired in glittering gemstones when they fled the mountain, her stronger memories were of Ama selling them off, one by one, for any number of necessaries to see their people through the years of exile.

As a result, her daughter had no inheritance of which to speak, aside from her mother’s good sense which she valued more highly, but it could not be used to ornament herself. “What were you thinking of?” she asked Hervor, turning the question round on her to stall for time.

“I’ve a bracelet of my mother’s, isn’t much, pretty plain, no jewels laid in, so it never got sold,” glancing at Dís out of the corner of her eyes, she remarked casually. “I was wondering if you couldn’t rework it somehow.”

“I’ll do my level best,” she promised immediately. “Just drop it round the forge tomorrow, or I could take it when I see you home - ”

“No, best wait ‘til tomorrow,” Hervor said firmly. “It’s mine, by rights - Ada won’t be wearing it, it’s too small to fit ‘round his arm - but I don’t want him seeing me take it out, I’ll wait until after he’s gone down the shop.”

“Sounds like a plan - hold on, d’you hear that?” Dís paused. They were still out of doors, near the Mannish part of town, where the thatched roofs of the houses lay exposed under an open sky. Some pitiful noise, caught between a mewl and a groan caught her ear and made her pause mid-step.

Hervor cocked her head into the wind and listened as well. “Is that cat?” she asked distastefully. Men kept the beasts as pets, let them come in and out of the house as they pleased. Cats were well and good for catching rats, but dwarves kept no animals in their underground homes, nor did they have much in the way of domesticated animals aside from ponies and mules to ride or pull their wagons. Since settling in the Blue Mountains most of them sold the animals they did possess for rent money (apart from Vigg’s aforementioned nag who was so old and so slow she couldn’t fetch a price).

“Sounds like it’s in a bad way,” Dís said, glancing back toward the source of the noise. It was coming from an alleyway near a pub neither girl ever stepped foot in. A place for travelers and passers-through who could not be counted on to be cordial to dwarrow-folk as those Men who lived in the Blue Mountains regularly. Best avoided if only to save oneself an easily won brawl.

Hervor gave Dís a look of extreme reluctance. “Don’t tell me you want to look after the flea-riddled thing.”

“Alright, I won’t tell you,” she replied with an easy smile as Hervor groaned.

“It’s probably got the plague! It’ll scratch you and you’ll be laid up in bed with...festering boils or somesuch and I’ll have to visit out of obligation and then _I’ll_ go catching it,” she groused even as she followed close on Dís’s heels. The dying sun and rising moon did not quite penetrate the darkness at the bottom of the alley, which reeked of old ale, piss and sick. No ill-treated tabby looked up at them with luminous eyes and a pitiful mien. What they found instead was infinitely more upsetting.

“Nori!” the girls breathed at once in a horrified chorus. He had such a big mouth on him and a cocksure manner that it was easy to forget how young he was, but curled up in a ball, new bruises and cuts forming on those half-healed dealt from Víli’s fists, he seemed undersized for his age.

When he saw his friends hovering over him, he looked torn between relief and embarrassment. “M’fine,” he mumbled, dribbling blood out of his mouth.

“That’s the worst falsehood you’ve ever spoke,” Dís announced, dropping to her knees beside him. “What _happened_ to you? Who do I need to kill?”

As much of a scamp as Nori was, they had grown up together and, him being younger, Dís always felt a special kinship with him, the two of them being some of the youngest dwarflings to survive their years abroad. It was probably why she agreed to let him help them so readily and it was certainly why her blood was boiling at the sight of him, so injured and pitiful, lying in the filth.

Even in the low half-light, she could see that these were not the sort of injuries one came by in a friendly fight. When their kind fought, their blows landed heavy, but they never sought to do permanent damage. More often than not when the fight was concluded the victor would treat the loser to a drink and all bad blood would be forgotten. Nori hadn’t been in a fight; he’d been _attacked_.

“They’re pro’lly long gone,” he muttered. “Don’t bother tryin’ t’track ‘em down.”

“Strangers?” Hervor asked, eyebrows rising to her hairline. Dwarrow merchants and peddlers who came for the holiday would never stay in this part of town, nor would they be so dishonorable as to beat a boy, who was little more than a child, bloody in an alleyway. There were always a few shady sorts in any community, but they too should know better than to lay hands on a young lad like this; it wasn’t as though he had much to rob.

“Aye,” Nori replied evasively. “Strangers - ouch!”

Dís was squinting at his face, in particular a gash on his brow that was bleeding hot and sticky over her fingers. “That’ll need stitches or - ”

“Don’t tell Dori!” he whispered pleadingly. “Or my Ma. Not a word to either of them!”

Hervor just stared at him incredulously, feeling he must have been addled by the blow. “Are you daft?” she asked, not the soul of tact when her temper flared. “Even if we don’t tell ‘em ourselves, look at you! Or don’t, the sight may fright you. They’ll know soon as they see you, you’ve been in a brawl.”

The younger dwarf just coughed in his hand; he spit out a tooth in the process. “Give it here,” Dís said firmly. “Óin might be able to stick it back in - did it for Thorin once, hasn’t fallen out yet.”

“I don’t want to see Óin,” Nori protested. “Just want to sleep.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Hervor said firmly. “You’re going to Óin’s and then I’m fetching your mother and brother - ”

 “No!” Nori shouted so violently he caused himself still more pain and curled up in a tighter ball on the ground, shivering slightly.

In an effort to calm him, Dís laid a hand on his hair which, though matted and tangled, seemed to be the only unhurt bit of him. “Alright,” she said softly. “Not a word to your Ma or Dori. But we _are_ taking you to Óin, he’s the closest.”

“I can’t walk,” he admitted reluctantly. “Slipped when I was r - I twisted my knee.”

Dís did not hesitate, nor did she chide him for nearly letting slip that he’d run from a fight. “Take this,” she said, handing her axe off to Hervor. Ignoring Nori’s complaints and protests she got one arm around his back and another under his legs and lifted him right off the ground. Her muscles were hard and strong as steel from years in the forge and Nori, being younger and smaller than her, did not weigh all that much to begin with.

“Hush your mouth,” she said when he objected to being carried like a child. “I’m not bringing Óin _to_ you, who do you think you are? King Under the Mountain?”

Nori shut up, but only because being carried through the streets jostled his cracked ribs and he did not want to lose yet more face by crying out in pain. Dís barely restrained herself from running full-out. It would attract more attention than a dwarrow noblewoman carrying her distant kin through the streets and Nori was particularly adamant about avoiding notice. Hervor walked beside them, green eyes going wide when she saw the abrasions on Nori’s hands, the cuts on his face and places where the skin had been rubbed raw from contact with the cobblestones. The cut on his head looked like it had been made by a knife wielded inexpertly.

When they reached the healer’s residence Hervor pounded on the door with the blunt end of Dís’s axehead. After a wait of a few agonizingly long seconds the door swung open and Glóin’s handsome face greeted them. If the situation was not so serious, the rate at which his expression turned from shocked pleasure at seeing Hervor on his doorstep to naked alarm when he looked beyond her at the injured dwarrow lad would have been funny. “We need to see your brother,” Hervor informed him.

“Aye, that’s clear enough; hang on, I’ll fetch him - no, wait, don’t just _stand_ there. Come in, come in!” Like a lightning bolt, Glóin was away, leaving the three young dwarves standing awkwardly just inside the doorway. The home Glóin shared with his mother, father and elder brother was much like every other house rented by the exiles of Erebor: small functional, but it did reflect the family that resided within. In the case of Gróin’s family, the shelves were lined with little jars containing poultices and potions for healing and various plants dried from pegs on numerous racks above the shelves.

Óin appeared quickly in the doorway to the sitting room, immediately taking Nori from Dís’s arms as he exclaimed, “What under Mahal’s bountiful earth happened to him?”

“He won’t say,” Dís told him, watching Nori purse his split lips and scowl through the pain. “Don’t see as it matters. You aren’t busy, are you?”

The healer gave her a wry look. “Seems I am now - Glóin, boil some water and fetch bandages,” he ordered, leading them to a room at the back of the house. It was even more plain than the rest of the place, but there were even more bottles and herbs along the walls, along with bone saws, chisels, instruments for stitching, bleeding and a jar of leeches, the sight of which made Nori go pale under his bruises. “These all need to be washed out - wherever did you find him?”

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Nori asked from the table Óin laid him out on.

“I want to know exactly what manner of filth you’ve been lying in,” Óin told him in a tone that would not be argued with. “And for how long - what in _blazes_ happened to you, m’lad?”

Nori kept his mouth stubbornly shut, eyes seeking Dís out and silently begging her to help him. With a gusty exhale she informed Óin that Nori did not want his mother and brother to know what he’d been up to. The healer let out a bark of a laugh and threw his hands in the air. “Oh, aye, and o‘course he doesn't! Since whatever got you in such a state, I’m sure they’d never approve of. I don’t go in for secret-keeping from kin, but if that’s the only way you’ll let me do my work, I’ll promise to keep my mouth shut, laddie. Now,” he opened Nori’s tunic, revealing his mottled chest that trembled and quaked as he checked the ribs and assured himself that, yes, at least one was cracked, “what happened?”

Taking a deep breath (and immediately regretting it) Nori told a halting tale of how he’d recently taken to spending time at the Boar’s Head Tavern. “That place?” Óin asked as his brother brought in a bowl of steaming hot water to wash the cuts and scrapes clean of mud and other foul things from the alleyway. “What’s a bairn like you doing ‘round a place like that? Crawling with Men of the most unsavory sort, so’s I hear.”

“None of your business,” Nori replied rudely and Glóin looked about ready to clobber him.

“Stay your fists,” his elder brother ordered sharply. “If you add one more bruise to this lad’s collection, I’ll be sending the bill to _you_.” He had his own way of making the lad talk. Dripping hot water into the still-bleeding cut on his face, he said, “My supply of whiskey’s looking a wee bit scanty. Mightn’t be enough to dull the pain from the needle when I get to sewing your scalp back together. What was that about my business?”

“Betting pool,” Nori informed him immediately and, satisfied, Óin told his brother to fetch a tumbler of whiskey for the young master. “The horse races. Our horse races, Men can’t bet in ‘em, but the stakes get high and they get greedy. I told ‘em I’d put coin down for them - ”

“Nori, that’s shameful!” Hervor exclaimed.

“It’s not!” he insisted. “I wasn’t taking the shortest of ‘em down to the track and disguising them as dwarves, was I? Just looking to make a bit o’coin is all. How was I to know they’d been tipped off I’d...”

“You what?” Dís asked suspiciously.

Nori fidgeted a little and moaned in pain to avoid answering right away, but all eyes were on him and he knew he would not be able to put it off forever. “Well, I was entitled to a little something,” he said defensively. “Commission, like. Maybe I wasn’t honest about the results - I was _mostly_ honest! - just wanted to keep a bit for myself. How they found out the truth, I don’t know.”

As Glóin returned with the whiskey, Óin made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, as though he’d tasted something foul. “Ach! Lad, they didn’t hear _nothing_. They swindled the swindler, likely they didn’t intend on carrying their business out honorably any more than _you_ did! You mix with filth, you get dirty, no two ways about it.”

“ _Men_ did this to you?” Glóin asked, looking over the damage Nori’s suffered. “I thought they had no more strength than a child of ten.”

Nori’s cheeks flared red and he looked away. “I thought I could handle ‘em fine,” he said to the wall. And that was the most shameful part, to him. A dwarf ought to be able to hold his own against such as them.

“How many were there?” Óin prompted him as Nori rose himself up on his elbows to swallow the whiskey, which seemed to burn a line down his throat right to the pit of his stomach.

Rasping, he coughed a little and replied, “I dunno, a dozen? Half a dozen? Started seeing double after a while.”

From her station in the corner, Hervor folded her arms and glared. “Men have not an ounce of honor in their blood,” she declared. “Attacking a half-grown lad like that! Do they know how old you are?”

“Oh, aye,” Nori said, falling back down to lie flat on the table. “ _Exactly_ how old I am. They were curious, y’see. I told ‘em. Sixty-two. Older than some of their grandfathers.”

Dís wanted to shake him. “They haven’t any idea what that means for our kind!” she exploded at them. “They probably thought they were dealing with a mightily stupid grown dwarf, not a naive little whelp.”

“Grown?” Glóin asked skeptically. “ _Him_?”

“S’the beard,” Nori said, his words gently slurred. He made to tug on the wispy hair on his chin, but missed and conked himself on the nose instead. “And all dwarves are shorter than them, eh? Don’t matter if I’m a short dwarf or no, they can’t tell. Men don’t know. Men are stupid. Thought so, anyway.”

“Mind you don’t get in a drinking contest for your next trick,” Glóin advised him, seeing how quickly the alcohol did its work. It was spiked with an extract of poppy seeds, but Glóin never saw anyone succumb to its effects _that_ quickly before. But then, his brother was usually stitching up battle-hardened warriors and not idiot lads with more ambition than sense.

Óin was warming the needle in a candle flame and preparing the thread. “Hold him still, will you?” he requested and Hervor and Glóin immediately went forward to keep his shoulders down and still his head from twitching or jerking. Dís felt useless until Óin approached her and spoke quietly. “I know he doesn’t want folks going to his mother and brother, but someone’s got to stay with him tonight. Better if it’s kin and I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t mind going against my word in this matter, but if he wakes and sees them and throws a fit, he’ll do himself a harm.”

“I know someone who’ll look after him, not his mother or his brother,” Dís said, looking over Óin’s shoulder at Nori lying so still and small on the table. Even though he brought this on himself, she couldn’t help feeling a great swell of pity for him. He wasn’t a _bad_ lad, after all. He just did some bad things from time to time. Handing off the tooth she'd nearly forgotten was in her possession, she beat a hasty retreat to the door. “I’ll be back quick as I can.”

Without pausing to wash Nori’s blood from her hands or tunic, she sped off into the night in search of a particular miner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY Óin shows up! I've had the poor guy tagged since the beginning and haven't had a role for him, but thanks to Nori being the king of Poor Life Choices, here he is.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, remember how the last chapter was slightly darker than the ones before it? This next one continues in that vein in the last half. **Warning** for **descriptions of violence** and some **PG/PG-13 gore**. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled hijinks in the next installment.

Víli was nothing if not a creature of habit; as usual, he was to be found at the pub with his fellow miners, which was the first place Dís looked for him. She found him quickly and once she explained what the situation was (with some vagaries since Bofur was a damned _gossip_ and he’d have the story spread like wildfire throughout the mountains within the hour), he pushed his chair back from the table and rose to follow her to Óin’s sickroom.

“Who’d he tussle with?” he asked once they were outside. “Must’ve been some quarrel if he got routed so bad he wants looking after.”

“It wasn’t a tussle,” Dís clarified, scowling. “Some Men - six or twelve, he couldn’t say - had their merry way with him over their take from the horse races. Went about how you’d expect, he’s not hardly a stout sort. Óin’s stitching his face up for him.”

Víli let out a low whistle and grimaced. “Aye, he’s a reedy one, takes more after his Ma than his brother. And he’s such a lad still.”

That was Nori, put simply. Child’s body with a child’s cunning, but cursed with all the jaded ambition of a dwarf twice his age. “He didn’t want us going to Dori or his Ma,” Dís explained as they neared the house. “I thought you - ”

“‘Course, ‘course,” Víli nodded with an understanding smile. “His Ma...I can’t work out if she understands half of what he gets up to - if she does, she certainly don’t pay it no mind. I suppose she’s not keen on wasting her time. Dori knows enough and reams him out for it regular. No wonder he didn’t want either of ‘em...they always been that way?”

“For as long as I remember, aye,” Dís sighed and rapped on the door of the house, waiting to be admitted. “Nori’s wild as an unbroken pony. Dori, he’s my brother’s age they were educated up together, but he was old enough to work by the time the Mountain fell and, it being the two of them and their Ma, Nori’s minding fell by the wayside.”

The door opened and the two were ushered inside by Óin, wiping his hands on a towel tucked into his belt. “Come along,” he inclined his head toward the back room. “He’ll be fine, he lay so still I got the stitches in nice and even. Wasn’t a deep cut, head wounds are usually bleeders; if there’s a scar when it’s all healed up, it’ll be a faint one.”

“Foul deeds don’t deserve fair markings,” Dís muttered. Now that she was reassured Nori would indeed recover none the worse for wear, she had it in her to be annoyed at him rather than simply worried for him. Víli nudged her arm and winked at her.

“Now, now,” Víli said gently. “Don’t be so cross; elsewise young Nori might think on you as he does his brother and he can’t afford to lose what friends he does claim.”

“Truer words never spoken,” Óin agreed, looking Víli up and down with critical eyes. Fixing Dís with a significant look he cleared his throat. “ _You_ , my lass, are neglecting your manners.”

“Sorry,” she said, not sounding particularly apologetic for her lapse. “Óin, son of Gróin, this is Víli, son of...erm...” This was terribly embarrassing; years of acquaintance with the miner and she did not remember his father’s name, except that it ended with ‘íli.’ Was it Híli? No, more like -

“Son of Fíli,” he interjected smoothly, with a short bow. “At your service, sir.”

“At yours and your family’s,” Óin replied, shooting a wry smile at Dís. “Picked him up off the street, did you? First obliging soul you came across?”

“Nah, we go back far enough. I don’t have much cause to speak of my father too frequent, sir; him having passed on,” Víli explained, puffing himself up a little. “He died a burned dwarf.”

Dís looked startled. “You never told me that!” she declared. She knew Víli’s mother and father passed on, his father before her people settled in the Blue Mountains and his mother shortly after that, but he never said his father was one of the many who fell at Azanulbizar. Dís could not imagine why he would omit such a thing, it was an honor. She knew it was an honor. She’d spent years and years convincing herself of the fact so she could remember her grandfather and her brother without feeling she would be sick from sorrow.

Víli just smiled in answer to her question. The expression looked a little sickly itself, around the edges. “Never came up,” he said, following the healer into the chamber where Nori was held. Hervor was washing out a bloody rag in a bowl while Glóin sat upon a low couch with - of all things - Nori’s head in his lap.

“He wouldn’t stop grousing that he wanted a pillow and we haven’t any to spare,” he explained, though no one said a word about it. “I’m just doing this to shut him up.”

“Aww, don’t be so modest,” Hervor grinned. “You’ve been sweet with him, braiding his hair and all."

“Just to keep it clear of the wound,” Glóin said, looking up when Víli’s hand dropped on his shoulder.

“I’ll relieve you, eh?” he said as Glóin beat a hasty retreat to the door. Hervor lingered a moment before Dís waved her away.

“Your father’s probably worried sick, I’ll stay on a bit.”

“What about your brother?” Hervor asked.

Dís shook her head, sitting down on a stool by Nori’s side. “I’m not worried,” she shrugged. “Chances are he’s long been abed, he sleeps like the dead, he won’t have any idea what time I get in.” With one final, worried glance at Nori, Hervor nodded and disappeared into the house.

“Both you lassies can go home,” Víli whispered. “I’ll stay, after all, it’s what you -Ey there, boyo.” He’d thought Nori was asleep until his eyes opened and he squinted up at him. “How’s the lad?”

“Wha’re you doing here?” he asked, his words slow and sloppily uttered.

Óin explained that he gave him another dram of whiskey for the pain, that he’d sleep sound enough, but Víli should wake him every few hours, just to be sure he did wake - and if he did not, then Víli was to fetch him immediately.

“Where you come from?” Nori asked again, reaching up and snatching a fistful of Víli’s bright golden beard in his hands.

Dís removed his hands, since Víli seemed in no hurry to do so. He really was too kind-hearted for his own good. “I went to fetch him,” she said briskly. “Now, quiet down and go to sleep, or didn’t you hear Mister Óin?”

“M’not tired. Sing me a song,” Nori slurred, running a hand drunkenly down Dís’s arm. She pulled away and covered his hand with hers, forcing him to lie still.

“A song?” she asked skeptically, then shook her head. “You don’t deserve one.”

“ _Dís_ ,” he whinged pitifully, a common refrain from their time traveling. When the adults were working and she was too young to go with them inevitably Nori would wander to her side, tug on her sleeve and insist she pass the day with him. “A _song_. Sing...about themintin.”

Leaning closer, she furrowed her brow and asked him to repeat himself. “The what, now?”

“The mountain,” Nori said, slightly more clearly. “I want to hear ‘bout the mountain. Our mountain.”

She knew what song he wanted to hear, though it seemed strange to be struck by a bout of homesickness here, in Óin’s makeshift sickroom being attended by a distant cousin and his mother’s lodger. Then again, in a place so unlike Erebor, perhaps it was a perfectly reasonable request.

“Fine,” she said after a moment’s consideration. “If you’ll be still and sleep so I can get home ere cockcrow.” With a slightly self-conscious glance at Víli who was watching the both of them with great interest, she moved her chair a bit closer to Nori’s bedside and began to sing in her low, clear voice.

“Far over the Misty Mountains cold  
To dungeons deep and caverns old.  
We must away, some fateful day,  
To find our long forgotten gold.

The Dwarves of yore made mighty spells  
While hammers fell like ringing bells.  
In places deep, where dark things sleep,  
In hollow halls beneath the fells...”

She sang of their great craftsmen, their glittering halls beneath the rock and the infamous day when it was all taken from them - and the final oath that someday they would return to claim all that was lost. Óin withdrew after a moment and Nori was eventually lulled to sleep, but Víli stared at her all the while, utterly enraptured. “That was beautiful,” he said quietly when it concluded. “Sad, but beautiful. Never heard that one from you afore.”

Dís hitched her shoulders and let her hair slide down to obscure her face. “I’d rather sing a tune you can dance to most days,” she replied. “But thanks. Not a bad voice, I’ve been told.”

“Not at all,” Víli said earnestly. “And _such_ a song as that. Whose is it, do you know?”

In truth, Dís did not. It seemed she’d always known it, though she knew it could not have been sung until long enough after the Mountain fell that their grief was light enough that their people were inspired to sing. Many said it was her mother who first dreamed up the words, some long-ago night. She did not know for sure; it was one of the many questions she never got to ask before she passed on.

“It’s just a song,” she said, rising from her seat. “I’ve got to go. You sure you’re alright?”

“I’ve slept worse places,” Víli said easily, inclining his head back to rest against the wall. “I ever tell you about the time I - ah, well, it’s late, it can wait. Actually, I’d not say no if you nudged that stool a wee bit closer...”

“Say no more,” Dís picked the stool up and placed it at just the right distance so he could put his feet up.

“You’re a diamond, lass,” he smiled at her.

“And you’re pure gold, laddie,” she replied, bending to give him a brief half-hug. Víli reached up and embraced her in turn, a thick arm over her shoulders and a warm hand at her back. Good, solid lad he was. And possessed of such a big heart. She was almost reluctant to pull away, but she did, sparing Nori a pat on the shoulder before she made for the door, jogging the rest of the way home.

Dís was not wrong in her earlier prediction. After Dwalin and Balin left him for the night and Thorin placed his sister’s (now cold) supper in the larder, he smoked a pipe, did some mending and forced himself to go to sleep. It was late, but she was grown, he reminded himself as he snuffed his candle and lay in the darkness. So she’d lost track of time - or maybe she was treating herself at the pub with her friends. She’d have a headache in the morning he could tease her about and that would be that. No sense losing sleep over it.

Rolling on his side, one ear straining to hear the familiar slide of the bolt of the front door and his sister’s boots on the floor, Thorin fell into an uneasy slumber. It would be an exaggeration to say Dís had a habit of putting him to bed, but this was the first night in a long while that she’d not departed for her room or he departed for his without a kiss and wishes for sweet dreams. That night, Thorin’s dreams were anything but kindly.

The nightmare began as it always did; with a glint of sunlight and a flash of metal. Once again, Thorin’s armor was rent, his helm lost among the armor of the fallen. The sun bore down hot upon him and he felt his skin tighten and blister. The sweat ran in his eyes blinding him. Every slice of his blade through flesh livened his blood, but every thrust he parried rattled his bones. It was a long fight, a hard one, and they were losing.

That was how the dream started and in the waking world the sweat would bead on Thorin’s brow and chest, he would moan at first, then mutter, then shout some command, war-cry or prayer in their sacred tongue. This time, though, he did not cry out at the sight of his grandfather’s mutilated head, held up like a grisly trophy, then tossed aside like rubbish. Nor did he scream as his father turned away from him, begging him to come back, trying to run after him with feet like lead. Nor did he weep to see his brother bleed out in his arms.

This time he saw his sister as the dwarfling she was at the battle, all elbows and knees, beard half-grown in, looking so small and afraid among the chaos.

His heart was in his throat; what was she _doing_ here? She was meant to be back in the tent with the healers. He tried to call out to her, but the sun’s heat made his mouth dry. When he tried to shout, he choked. The enemy took advantage of his distraction and a jagged Orcish knife stabbed him cleanly through the chest. Dís saw and she screamed, but the sound was muted, as though she were far away, but she was _right in front of him_. So close he could reach out and the blood on his hands would stain her shirtfront.

Instinctively, even as he fell to his knees, he raised a hand to cover the fast bleeding wound, he did not want her to see, he wanted to beg her to run, to shield her eyes, but he could not speak and now when he tried, all that came out was blood, bubbling hot and thick out of his throat.

One hand covered his heart, the other covered his mouth. _She mustn’t see_ , he thought to himself even as she cringed from him - a battlefield full of Orcs and _he_ was the one she was afraid of - _Run, please. Don’t look at me. Run, namad. Run as far and as fast as you can._

When Thorin woke to the sound of a door opening on hinges that were in bad need of oiling, he could still taste the blood in his mouth. No wonder, he thought as he came back to consciousness; he’d bitten his cheek. Before he quite knew what he was doing, his fumbling fingers lit a rushlight and he was on his feet, stumbling into the outer room.

“Do you know what time it is?” he barked as Dís froze in the hall, wide-eyed and startled. Thorin’s eyes narrowed as he took in her appearance. “Is that _blood_?” he demanded, coming closer and taking the front of her tunic between his fingers to examine it.

“It’s not mine,” she said defensively, tugging the fabric out of his hand and smoothing it nervously. “Sorry, I’m late, I - ”

“Where have you been?” he demanded. “What have you been doing?”

“Sorry, I lost track of time and - ”

“That doesn’t answer my question!”

Thorin’s voice was booming now, loud enough that the neighbors in the apartment upstairs thumped on the floor to make him stop shouting and the sound carried down through their ceiling. Shouting loudly enough to be heard through two feet of stone was no mean feat, but Dís, torn between guilt that she’d worried her brother, coupled with indignation at being scolded like some dwarfling who’d stolen biscuits from the kitchens, did not endear herself to the neighbors by shouting right back.

“What’s it matter?” she asked, folding her arms and glaring at her brother. “I’m here now, aren’t I? Just go back to sleep, I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You’re sorry you woke me?” Thorin asked incredulously. “ _That’s_ what you’re apologizing for, is it?”

Dís tossed her head back and laughed in his face. “I _was_ sorry. I suppose that’s not good enough for you! What should I be apologizing for? Why don’t you tell me, since I’m so very stupid, I haven’t any idea!”

“All of it!” Thorin snapped. “All of this nonsense, this staying out nights, missing supper, wasting your time with those miners - not even kin, not even Erebor-born. This is unacceptable, do you understand?” In that horrible moment, Thorin heard his father’s voice coming out of his mouth, stern and cold. ‘Unacceptable’ was one of Thráin’s favorite words.

_You lasted less than two bouts, that last lad was five years younger than you! Unacceptable._

_Where were you? Galavanting off with Dwalin to unplumbed depths when you were meant to be at court! It’s unacceptable._

_Chasing your brother like that when our ponies need to save their strength for our wagons. Unacceptable. I thought I taught you better than that, lad._

It seemed Dís remembered those criticisms well. “You haven’t any right to tell me where I go and who I see, nor how long I am about it! You’re not our father!” she shouted, throwing her hands up in frustration, kicking one of the kitchen chairs against a far wall where it broke apart.

“No, I’m not. I’m here, after all!” Thorin roared picking up a mug off the table and hurtling it at the mantle where it shattered. “If I _was_ our father I’d have been out that door ages ago and never mind what became of you!”

The threat of leaving struck Dís as none of her brother’s former bluster had. Her clenched jaw trembled and her narrowed eyes widened in naked hurt. It was a low blow and Thorin regretted the words the second they left his mouth, for that wasn’t what he meant to say, not at all. He was not trying to tell Dís he wanted to leave her - _never_. He was only angry, so angry, that he felt he had to parent her in their own father’s place.

Thráin should have been the one to shout at her for staying out all hours, he should have been the one waiting by the front door while Thorin sneaked her in the back. No, that wasn’t right. _Frerin_ would have been the one sneaking. Thorin would have caught them and never said a word about it the next morning when he was asked while Ama saw right through his innocent act and laughed at them all. That was how it should have been.

But if all was as it should have been, they would not be having this fight. They would not be in a cramped little hovel in the Blue Mountains with angry neighbors over their heads, but half a world away under vaulted ceilings in caverns the sun could not touch. If all was as it should have been, his sister should never have cause to look at him with such crumpled devastation in her eyes.

 _No, no, I meant to shame_ him _not you, my girl, not you,_ Thorin thought desperately seeking to undo the damage his words had wrought, but none of the apologies whirling through his mind seemed adequate. Without knowing what to do, all his ire gone now, poured out of him in the bile that issued from his tongue, he reached for his sister, but she cringed away from his touch.

“Don’t let me keep you,” Dís said without any resolve in her voice whatsoever. Her voice trembled and she folded her arms across her chest to hide her shaking hands. “Go, then.” And before she could watch him leave, she fled herself, into her bedroom, door slamming behind her.

Thorin did not go anywhere. He turned and lay his hands flat upon the kitchen table, taking care not to clench his fists. If he did, he would surely destroy something else in his frustration and they were down one drinking vessel because of his thoughtlessness already. A muffled thump from behind his sister’s closed door made his shoulders tense; it sounded like she’d punched a wall. He wished she’d turn her fists on him; at least if she stood before him, he would be able to apologize to her face. But all dwarves respected a closed door. He would not approach her again that night and neither did it seem likely that she would come to him.

Half numbed to his own misery, Thorin mechanically picked up the shards of shattered ceramics from the dark fireside and threw them into the rubbish bin. They were broken to small to be salvaged. The chair, on the other hand, fell apart at the joinings and the wood had not splintered. He would fix it on the morrow; he was too tired and too grieved to work more that night.

On the off chance that she might seek him out, Thorin kept his bedroom door deliberately open. Though he lay down in bed, he did not think he would sleep more that night, but he supposed he must have done. When he woke in the morning, Dís’s door was open, but she was already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FREAKING DURINS, AMIRITE? Anyway, on a happier note, I managed to get some honest-to-goodness Tolkien in this chapter! Dís sang the first two verses of the real Misty Mountain song (doctored slightly with one ~~improved~~ movie lyric and a word change from me because they're not actually going on a quest in the morning).


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY DORI. You know who's difficult to write? Dori. You know who I don't think I have the measure of? Dori. But you know who's been sitting on the fringes of this fic and deserves a scene? DORI. So here he is. Enjoy. Also some worldbuilding which seeks to answer the question: How much power does Thorin have in the Blue Mountains? (Answer: Not a whole lot.)
> 
> And, on a personal note, if any of you guys are in or have friends and family in the Boston area, I hope you're all doing okay.

Dwalin was alone at the smithy that morning. The fire was lit and burning hot by the time Thorin got there, but there was no iron softening within it, nor steel. Instead Dwalin seemed to be using the excess heat to put a kettle on.

“Coffee,” he said, handing Thorin a mug before his friend could ask him about it. “Before you ask, she’s gone off to deliver the hoops to the cooper’s and she said she’d help afix the gears to the roundabout. I expect she’ll be back ‘round noontime.”

Thorin nodded glumly, taking the mug and swallowing down a mouthful. It burned his tongue, but the pain woke him up. “Where’d you get coffee?” he asked. It was a treat in the Blue Mountains, a luxury from the South and East. Thorin exhausted his meager supply from last autumn’s trade months ago and it was some weeks yet before they would journey South to stock up for the winter.

“That’s some of last year’s stock, Balin hoards it. Thinks I haven’t any idea,” Dwalin snorted and shook his head. “Only took enough for the two of us, he won’t miss it.”

“Just don’t tell me you packed the tin with pipe ash to make up the difference,” Thorin said, taking another scalding sip. Dwalin must have surmised that he and Dís fought and he was bracing himself for questions, but none seemed to be forthcoming.

“If I did, I’ll keep it to myself,” Dwalin said with a quick grin. Thorin smiled back half-heartedly, grateful for the drink and the reprieve of having to explain himself. In the cool light of day, he knew he’d overreacted. He’d known last night too, but now his shouting seemed absolutely ridiculous. She was home safe and sound. And what of the blood on her shirt? She said it wasn’t hers; very likely Víli or Glóin or even Hervor got in a fight with someone and she happened to be nearby when it happened.

And he’d blown up over it. Worse than that, he’d thrown her greatest fears at her because he was vexed. Dís was absolutely right; he was not their father and had no right to demand to know where she was every minute of every day. And no right to take it out on her that he got lonely. The coffee seemed more bitter than it had been when Thorin started drinking it and he put the mug down. He’d need to purchase another since he broke his own last night. By the Maker, he was an idiot.

Thorin was just aware enough of his surroundings to notice a hammer being flung at him out of his peripheral vision. He caught it on instinct and turned to see Dwalin staring pointedly at him. “You come to stand or did you come to work?” he asked. “And drink up; I didn’t court my brother’s wrath so you could leave your mug half-full.”

Idiot though he was, Thorin reflected as he finished off the rest of his drink in a few gulps and set about doing his work, he was blessed to have friends who were willing to overlook his failings. He’d have to light a candle in gratitude for it, three days hence.

Losing himself in work was the best balm for his troubled mind. The sight of bent metal, the clang of the hammer eased some of the tension from his limbs. Thorin was most productive when he was upset and he completed all the tasks he intended to work on that day a little before noon. Looking around for something to occupy himself, he remembered Dís had some close work she was finishing up and he decided to take care of it for her. He’d taken up a pair of thick leather gloves, necessary for acid etching when Dwalin caught his eye and nodded at something beyond the walls of their smithy.

Peering out into the high street, Thorin saw a broad-shouldered, dark-haired figure marching purposefully up the road. Dori, he realized after a moment and was surprised to see him out and about so early in the morning. Surely he didn’t need a new set of needles already. The dwarf seemed to be speaking aloud, but not to anyone in particular. His eyes were narrowed and his shoulders squared, passers-by gave him a wide berth in the road. Dwalin and Thorin exchanged a perplexed look when Dori finally reached them, sticking his head over the counter of their stall and pointing an accusatory finger directly at Thorin

“And I have a bone to pick with _you_ , sir!” Dori thundered, evidently coming to the end of a very long rant which only he himself had been privy to.

Regardless of this clear display of displeasure, Thorin could not help but think Dori had the wrong dwarf. “What about?” he asked, folding his arms, but not backing away. Dwalin positioned himself in the back of the smithy, but did not take up his hammer; he did not want to miss a word of what would doubtless prove a most entertaining exchange.

Dwalin and Thorin had grown up with Dori and he was related to them, on his mother’s side, but the three were not bosom friends. When the time came to devote themselves to a craft, Dwalin and Thorin apprenticed as smiths while Dori went into his mother’s work as a weaver and cloth-cutter. There was an intangible tie that bound them together, the shared the trials of the road and the fact that all three of them had survived the bloodbath at Azanulbizar, but while Dwalin and Thorin were close as brothers, Dori preferred to keep himself to himself much of the time.

“About the _shameful_ way your kinswoman conducted herself last night,” Dori replied, drumming the fingers of one hand against the counter top aggressively. “Lies of omission are bad enough, but aiding and abetting sneaking and skulduggery, I’ll not abide, King Under the Mountain or no!”

Dori could only be talking about Dís, for he had no other kinswomen left, but Thorin distinctly felt he’d lost the plot somewhere. Folding his arms over his chest Thorin gave the shorter fellow a searching look and inquired, “Come again?”

Dori looked momentarily startled then laughed mirthlessly. “You haven’t any idea at all, have you? Well, that’s just the thing, isn’t it? Ought to lock them up tight ‘til they know what’s good for them.”

“Do you want to talk this through somewhere more private?” Thorin asked, glancing at the street over Dori’s shoulder. He was attracting a bit of a crowd and Thorin was in no mood to hold court in front of witnesses.

Belatedly, Dori realized just how loudly he’d been expressing his displeasure. He did not seem embarrassed, merely more agitated. “If it pleases you,” he said and Thorin met him around the side of the shop where onlookers would have to follow if they wanted to hear more. Folks were willing to pause in the street to listen for new gossip, but they were rarely so bold as to obviously eavesdrop.

“So. My sister’s been giving you trouble, has she?” Thorin asked, feeling around in his leather jerkin for a pouch of pipeweed; this was a conversation he needed to smoke for, he was sure. Though his stores of tobacco were dwindling, he had enough left to offer some to Dori who was eyeing his pipe jealously. Thorin was more than willing to share; it might calm the other dwarf down enough to realize that Thorin was no mind-reader and if he was going to attempt to take him to task for something, it might be helpful to elaborate on just what had his dander up.

“Aye,” Dori said packing his pipe. “Well - no. Not exactly. Only I ought to be _told_ , oughtn’t I? Even if he’d prefer I be kept in the dark - and who’s he to dictate what’s what, anyway? Bled half to death, he shouldn’t get any say in who he sees and doesn’t see. Or am I wrong?”

Taking a draw of smoke, Thorin leaned against the outer wall of the smithy. “We did establish I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about.”

“I thought - Well. I didn’t. Sorry.” It was only when Dori tried and failed to light the bowl of his pipe that Thorin realized how much his hands were shaking. On the third attempt the leaf caught and Dori took the bit between his lips, inhaling deeply. “You know my idiot brother.”

“Nori.” As Dori only had the one brother, it wasn’t much of a puzzle.

“Aye. Nori,” and he said the name strangely with a mix of exasperation and fear in his voice. “Well, he fancied himself a bookmaker - and I’m not talking about the sorts who work at the bindery. By rights you ought to clap him in irons, I suppose.”

“Not my rights,” Thorin reminded him. They were settlers in the Blue Mountains, not rulers and Thorin had no authority to pass sentence on a fellow dwarf, even one of his own subjects, for a crime committed on their soil. He could plead on a fellow’s behalf or make a recommendation to the court and his word, by virtue of his position, carried more weight than others’, but his right to rule was sealed within the gates of Erebor.

Dori grimaced, yet again reminded of their degraded state. When he could not even count on his King to arrest his wayward brother, his own station in life looked lowly indeed. “I suppose he’s too young to stand trial, at that.” Again, he laughed bitterly. “ _I’d_ have to take the charges on in his stead. What a mess, what a mess.”

“Have charges been laid against him?” Thorin asked, all the while wondering what Nori’s attempts at gambling had to do with either himself or his sister.

“What? No, no, who would bring them up? Certainly not those who laid him flat in that alleyway.” Taking a deep, steadying breath, Dori finally started from the beginning. “Half a score Men waylaid him last night and left him for dead. They clearly didn’t realize it takes more than hobnail boots and a few trifling knives to kill a Dwarf - even a young one with rust and sawdust ‘twixt his ears.”

Thorin’s expression went from bewildered to furious as Dori spoke. Throughout their exile, they encountered Men of all stripes who bade their women and children remain indoors when their caravan came into town. Who approached them with knives inexpertly tucked in their belts or who hid their coin purses deep in their coat pockets to guard against itchy dwarrow-fingers. Thorin himself had been scorned, spat at, and called any number of vile names among those who only knew of Erebor from the stories of loose-tongued tradesmen, if they’d heard of the great Kingdom at all.

Thorin would never claim his race was above reproach in all things, but the lowliest actions he’d seen in his life were perpetrated by Orcs, Elves, and Men. “How is he?”

“He’s an idiot,” Dori repeated. “A recovering idiot. Your sister and Hervor, Vigg’s daughter, stumbled upon him and took him straight to Óin’s for healing. He was still half-drunk on whatever potion he poured down his throat to dull the pain when I left him.”

_Is that blood?_

_It’s not mine._

Suddenly, the events of last night began to make sense. “I’m pleased to hear he’ll recover,” Thorin said slowly.

“So am I, damn it all,” Dori replied. “Worries me half to death, I never know where he is or what he’s up to. The lad thinks because he’s seen so much of the earth, he knows everything and he _doesn’t_. That’s proof, he doesn’t have any idea how wretched a place the world can be and what vile sorts prowl within it.” Passing a hand before his eyes, Dori rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’d rather he just...stay at home. Learn an honest trade, but he doesn’t have the patience for it, nor the inclination He was left too much to his own devices and...well, we didn’t have a choice, did we? Not then. We did the best we could.”

No, they did not have a choice. Thorin’s life up until this point could be summed up in that one simple phrase: _I’ve done the best I could; I haven’t had a choice._

“Was he at Óin’s all night?” Thorin asked. “Surely he would have sent for you.”

“Nori didn’t want me there,” Dori admitted. “I got the story from Víli, of all dwarves. That’s nice, isn’t it? ‘Oh, no, I’d rather not see my mother or my brother as I take eight stitches to the _head_ , but by all means, do send for the half-Broadbeam who lives in the spare room.’” Huffing in a disgruntled way, he continued, “Your sister found him at the pub and brought him back to Óin’s. Nori slept there most of the night and Víli carried him home a few hours before he had to go to work. I hadn’t slept at all; I caught them coming in the front door. There was quite a row, you can imagine.”

“I can,” Thorin nodded, remembering.

_Where have you been? What have you been doing?_

A thought seemed to occur to Dori as he exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Admittedly, the...shouting may have contributed to his disinclination to see me,” he said slowly, more to himself than to Thorin. Shouting was the most effective way of dealing with Nori, at least, in his brother’s experience. When he shouted back, then Dori knew he was listening, if only to argue with him.

That morning Nori had not really been up to arguing, he just babbled some nonsense until Víli tucked him in his own bed and closed the door, letting Dori vent the worst of his spleen all over him. “I had some harsh words for our lodger as well,” he added. “It wasn’t his fault, he was only doing what your sister asked him to.”

“Well, it’s as you said. She conducted herself poorly. Regardless of your brother’s wishes, you should have been told,” Thorin said. If Dís was bleeding all over Óin’s surgical table and he was not informed until some near-stranger carried her home the next morning, he would have reacted with something more potent than ‘harsh words.’

“Hmm,” Dori said, losing more and more of his choler as the minutes went on. “I suppose I ought to be grateful Nori hasn’t driven off all his friends yet. I just - “ Shaking his head and sighing gustily, he said, “I can’t help but _worry_ about him. You understand, surely.”

 _This is_ unacceptable, _do you understand?_

Tapping his pipe out against the side of the building, Thorin shrugged a little uncomfortably, “Dís gives me less cause to worry about her than Nori does you.”

“Ah, but you worry,” Dori shook his head. “Of course you do. I think...I think if circumstances were different, if I’d been more of a brother to him less of a - a poor substitution of a father things might have worked out rather better.”

Thorin had some opinions on that topic which were better kept to himself. Personally, he’d tried both, with varying degrees of disaster as a result. Acting as a friend and brother, without paying proper heed to risk, led him to plead with his father on Frerin’s behalf to take part in the fighting on that miserable day. And worrying too much about risk and danger made him wound his sister to the core for aiding a friend in need. And the people called him King.

“You’re doing your best,” Thorin said, but the words sounded hollow even to himself. “It’s all any of us can do.”

“Maybe so,” Dori nodded. Then with a shrew look at Thorin, abruptly added, “You’re lucky.”

The taller dwarf’s head snapped up, surprised, and Dori snorted ruefully at his own words. “Well. If any of us can be called ‘lucky.’ I wouldn’t say so, most days, but that sister of yours...very loyal. It’s a good quality.”

“Lucky,” Thorin repeated dully. He’d lost so much. He stood to lose so much more and yet...well, there were some things that made life bearable. Pilfered coffee, for instance. A sister with a quick laugh and teasing nature. And he was alive, wasn’t he? Hale and whole when so many others were not. These were small things, that didn’t amount to a great deal when weighed against the riches of Erebor and the power of the throne, but they were enough to get one through until bed.

“If I’ve given offense - ”

“No,” Thorin held up a hand to halt any forthcoming apologies. “No offense. Just something to think about.”

Dori made a quiet humming noise and tapped his own pipe out. “Thanks for the smoke,” he said cordially, inclining his head. “Er. What I said before...I may have been a bit overhasty and, ah, perhaps too free with my words.”

Shaking his head, Thorin waved off the explanation. “You were worried,” he said simply. “Happens to all of us.”

Pleased to see that the King Under the Mountain was not too angry with him for charging down the street at him, metaphorical swords ready to clash, he just bowed again and excused himself to head home; he rather wanted to see how his brother was recovering.

Thorin entered the smithy once Dori went on his way and stared into middle distance for a while, thinking. He didn’t notice Dwalin come up beside him until his friend’s hand was on his shoulder, jostling him from his reverie. “D’you mind going for our meal?” he asked, depositing a few coins in Thorin’s hand. “Some of us weren’t working like there was a red hot poker to our backs, I’ve got work to finish before the day’s through.”

“Not a problem,” Thorin said, pocketing the money. “I could use a walk.”

The day seemed fairer than those few past, though there was no appreciable change in the weather. The air held the crispness of late autumn and the leaves of the mountain trees had long faded from emerald green to red garnet and the orange-yellow of heated amethyst. Some lowered their heads respectfully as Thorin passed and he nodded to them. There were a great many of his people in the Blue Mountains, he reflected. He hadn’t lost quite everything. Not yet.

Thorin rounded the corner to the bake shop and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw his sister emerge from within, carrying a wrapped parcel. Dís seemed no less surprised to see him. For a minute they just stared at each other, then Thorin inclined his head toward a grassy field behind the line of shops. She followed without a word, only half a step behind. There were a few dwarflings about, rolling in the grass and making a mess of themselves, but he led her to a low stone wall and sat down, feeling he must have been forgiven, at least partially, because Dís sat beside him without hesitation.

“I’m collecting a list of my faults,” Thorin said after a short silence. “I thought you might be able to help.”

Dís’s lips twitched, but she smothered the smile down, scuffing her toes in the dirt idly. “Possibly,” she nodded, eyes on the ground. “What have you come up with already?”

“Fair few items,” her brother replied, running a hand through his hair. “I’m hot-headed. Hard to get on with. I don’t speak enough. When I do speak I say cruel things in anger, things I don’t mean. I’m a fool.”

“How’s that?” she asked, cocking her head to regard him thoughtfully.

“I’m careless with the things that are most important to me,” Thorin said, looking meaningfully at his sister. “Someone who’s wise takes special care with the things they love most. It’s a fool who misuses them or worse. Puts ‘em on a shelf or behind glass where they gather dust in safety, but do no good for anyone save himself.”

“That’s a pretty phrase,” his sister commented. “One of Balin’s?”

“Aye,” Thorin nodded, smiling a little. “Must be. I’m not clever enough to come up with such on my own. I suppose that counts as another fault. In any case, that’s what I’ve got so far. Anything to add?”

“You forgot two,” Dís said promptly, peering at him out of the corner of her eyes.

Thorin looked at her expectantly, anticipating quite a tongue lashing. “And they are?”

“Your ears stick out,” she said, reaching out and tweaking one that poked out behind his braids. “And your nose is too small.” Turning to face her brother, she threw her arms around Thorin’s neck as his own came around her waist. “That’s about it, I think.”

Thorin held her close and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry I’m such a grumpy bastard all the time,” he apologized, which was meant to cover a multitude of slights, not simply the vitriol he rained down on her last night.

“Oh, it’s not _all_ the time,” Dís insisted, kissing him hard on the cheek and smiling despite herself. ‘Grumpy bastard’ was Frerin’s preferred endearment for Thorin. “I’m sorry I stayed out too late and made you worry. And that I’ve been so scarce.”

“No, no, see who you will,” Thorin said immediately, then smiled crookedly. “It’s not your fault I’m so bad tempered the only folks who’ll abide with me are family.”

“Not just family,” Dís shook her head, pulling back and grinning at Thorin. “Bifur likes you.”

“Bifur likes everyone,” Thorin said, shaking his head. If he lived to be five-hundred years old, Thorin was sure he’d never meet a kindlier soul than Bifur. The only sort he knew the toymaker could not abide were Orcs and Thorin liked to think he was at least a step above Orcs in terms of peevishness.

“Let’s head back before that gets cold,” he said, nodding to the wrapped parcels his sister carried. “Did you tell Dwalin you’d pick up our meal on your way in?”

“Ha,” Dís deadpanned. “I didn’t have to. He was very particular about reminding me to fetch our dinner when I left this morning.”

Thorin stopped in his tracks, threw his head back and laughed heartily. Dís gave him an odd look and asked, “What’s so funny?”

Shaking his head, her brother said, “Folks think Balin’s got all the brains in that family. They don’t know the half of it.” Walking back to the pastry shop, he bade Dís wait for him; he had another purchase to make.

When the two came back to the forge together, Dwalin straightened up from his work and smiled at them with the smuggest, damnedest twinkle in his eye that Thorin ever saw. “All patched up, then?” he asked and Thorin lobbed a paper sack at him.

Opening it up, he saw a dozen balls of fried dough, dipped in honey and rolled in cinnamon and sugar. “I didn’t know we’d had a quarrel,” he remarked, popping one in his mouth. “What’re you apologizing for?”

“It’s not an apology, you arse,” Thorin replied, punching him on the arm affectionately.

“It’s a thank-you,” Dís informed him, whacking his other arm, then hugging him around the middle. “For knowing us _far_ too well.”

“I suppose I ought to get thanked for that,” Dwalin observed, hooking an arm around his cousin’s shoulders, then holding the bag out so Dís and Thorin could help themselves. “It’s not every dwarf who’ll put up with the likes of you two day in and day out.”

“It’s ‘cos you’re a paragon,” Dís declare with her mouth full. “Built of honor and nobility from the ground up.”

Dwalin considered her words for half an instant before he nodded and took another pastry. “Aye. Sounds about right to me.”


	12. Chapter 12

Glóin was going into battle. His first major campaign since he turned eighty, in fact, it was really a tremendous occasion. He’d been too young when their people sought to rout the beasts that overran Moria, but he’d seen some action in the intervening years, mostly fending off attacks from small bands of Orcs or the wild wolves that would threaten the mountains when prey was short in the wild.

Glancing down at the axe in his hand gave him a small measure of confidence; at least he was armed. That had to count for something.

Steeling his nerves, drawing himself up to his full height and wishing he’d stopped by the pub for a dram of liquid courage, he reached forward and opened the door of the butcher’s. The bell hanging overhead sounded alarmingly like a death knell to Glóin.

Vigg was standing behind the counter, sharpening one of his meat cleavers, half an inch thick at the blade and wider than a Man’s hand. He looked up when Glóin entered and greeted him with a slightly incline of the head and a casual, “Afternoon.” The blade sang a short, sharp song against the whetstone.

Glóin _really_ wished he'd stopped for that drink.

Vigg was a bit like a living boulder in appearance, his shoulders were round leading down to thick arms, the sinews of which stood out with every careful draw of the cleaver. His blood-splattered apron was drawn around the paunch of a pot-belly and his arms were as thick as Glóin’s neck. His hair was as red as his daughter’s, but he was not so fair, his russet eyebrows wild and uncombed, which only made his eyes seem wilder and more dangerous over a nose that appeared to have been broken three times and re-set inexpertly.

Came of being from a family of Healers; one was bound to notice things like that.

In fact, Glóin was so preoccupied wondering whether or not he ought to mention Vigg’s predicament to his brother, to see whether or not the appendage ought to be re-broken and set properly this time that he didn’t realize a full minute had passed in silence.

“Can I help you?” Vigg asked, laying the cleaver down on the counter and cocking his head at Glóin inquisitively.

Ah, right, he’d come to see about the daughter _not_ the father. And it would probably be too forward to offer to break his nose for him. “Aye - well, no. What I mean to say,” Glóin began again, thrusting the axe forward, blade-first in an unintentionally aggressive gesture. He must not have looked very intimidating for Vigg did not even blink, let alone flinch. “Er. Is your daughter in, by chance?”

Vigg’s open, if perplexed, expression closed all of a sudden. He made the connection between the finely made axe in Glóin’s hand and the lad’s stammering, uncomfortable demeanor and drew the logical conclusion. “Take your gifts away,” he said, picking the cleaver up again. It was perfectly sharp, but it seemed to Vigg all of a sudden that it could stand to be moreso. “She’s too young for courting.”

Glóin blinked rapidly and shook his head, very nearly losing his grip on the axe and dropping it. “It’s not a gift!” he protested. “I’m just returning what’s rightfully hers. Hervor - ah, _Miss_ Hervor, I meant - she forgot it. At my...”

The narrowing of Vigg’s eyes made it very clear that telling a father his daughter left something of value in his home would be decidedly unwise.

“At my brother’s, erm. Infirmary.” Because that conjured up images of leeches, miles of white linen and vacant pallets, which never made anyone’s minds turn to courting, in Glóin’s experience. Which was admittedly limited. Perhaps he ought to have sent it by post, if he could afford to hire the ravens. How many would it take to carry an axe? If he sprang for hawks they would be fewer in number, but also more expensive.

In any case, it was too late of such quandaries, the fact of the matter was he was here now and Vigg was looking at him as though he was either very dangerous or very stupid. Either way, it was not something that sat well with Glóin at all. “She’s perfectly hale and has no need of any Healer,” Vigg said at last. “Anyway, that’s not hers. Better luck next time, laddie.”

“ _Ada_ ,” a low mellow voice called into the shop from a back room and then there was Hervor, herself clad in a blood soaked apron and Glóin’s knees nearly went weak with relief. Then again, it might not be relief. His joints always felt a bit watery in her presence. It was a pity their women did not more often go to war. Put Hervor on the front lines and the enemy would be stunned to helplessness by her beauty alone. “Put the cleaver down. You’re right, it’s not mine, it belongs to Dís, Glóin’s very good to bring it back.”

Vigg snorted, unimpressed, and pointed at something beyond the wall of the shop, “Smithy’s on the other side of town. Seems you’re a mite turned around, laddie.”

“I thought it was yours, you were carrying it,” Glóin explained to Hervor, keeping one eye on the older dwarf who still had not laid down his weapon.

“Because Dís had her arms full with four and a quarter feet of born and bred idiot,” she replied rolling her eyes. “How is the invalid, by the bye?”

“On the mend,” Glóin replied at the same time as Vigg asked, “What idiot?”

“Nori, as I told you last night,” Hervor explained. “Haven’t you a hog to gut for smoking?”

“You told me you supped with the King and his family last night, which is why you were so late coming back,” Vigg said, turning the cleaver blade-side toward his daughter.

Hervor had a measure of her father’s courage and dignity for she did not flinch, merely gestured vaguely with her hand. “Oh, well, you know, supping with the King it’s never a usual sort of night, all sorts of strange things abound. I did _think_ I’d mentioned it, I suppose I could tell you the whole thing over again, only it might take a bit and there’s a pig wants trussing, but if you insist - ”

Vigg walked past, holding up a hand (not the one with the cleaver) and shaking his head. “I haven’t time enough for this, point your beau in the direction of the smithy and send him on his way - _you_ , my lass, have boars enough to skin and clean as will keep you busy ‘til sundown even _without_ wasting breath on the weaver’s son. Been trouble since the day he learnt to walk without falling.”

Sighing, Hervor gave her father a little pat on the back to shoo him away before drawing closer to Glóin. “Thanks for coming, even if it isn’t my axe, I’ll take it to her later, get away from the smell and the heat for a while,” she said. “Nori’s really doing better?’

“Aye, he’ll be on his feet in a day or two,” Glóin confirmed. Víli had carried him home very early that morning (or very late last night, depending on how one reckoned time), but that had more to do with the fact that the boy was still dead asleep, rather than the state of his infirmity.

“A day or two,” Hervor repeated to herself. A small frown pulled the sides of her lovely mouth down, but it only served to make her bottom lip seem all the pinker and plumper. Glóin’s grip tightened just a bit on the axe handle. “I suppose it hardly matters,” she said, as though coming to a conclusion. “It’s good you came by. Saved me a trip, I was going to come see you later.”

Glóin’s heart might have sprouted wings and soared, such was how light it felt at her words. Hervor was quite possibly the most glorious specimen of dwarven womanhood he’d seen, from her hair to her beard to her strong stout fingers with pig’s blood under the nails. She could light up the darkest cavern through force of her smile alone and she drew close to him now, so close their chests were nearly touching. Glóin swallowed, hard, the blood pounding in his ears, but not so loudly that he did not hear her next words.

“Well, see your brother, anyway,” she amended and his heart was lead in his breast once more. Hervor bent over and reached into her boot, removing a plain gold cuff which she held out to Glóin. “Take it,” she urged, glancing over her shoulder at the door her father disappeared through. “As payment for services rendered.”

Glóin cocked his head at Hervor in confusion. “I don’t think Óin’s calculated a bill, as yet,” he said. “Anyway, it’s not - ”

He had been about to say that it was to young Nori’s family the payment would be exacted from, but Hervor spoke over him. “I know he’s probably not in the habit of bartering and it isn’t much, but Nori hasn’t any ready money to his name and I’m sure Mister Óin doesn’t take credit either.”’

Glóin smiled and remarked, “You might be surprised.” His elder brother - _much_ elder, he was the last born in his family, in his parents’ golden years - could be rather gruff in his manner, but he had a generous nature. It was his craft and trade to save lives and while he preferred payment, Óin always said the work was its own reward.

 _What am I to do?_ he remembered his brother saying when Óin nursed a sick child of Man many years ago when they were still traveling. The family was fearful of letting him in the house since they could not pay and heard dwarves exacted reprisal by stealing babies. _Let the wee lass die because her parents haven’t any gold? Then they’ll be poor and grieved, what good will that do them? Or me, for that matter?_

Hervor smiled briefly, but pressed the cuff into his grip. Glóin accepted it, if only to feel the brush of her fingers against his. “Nevertheless,” she said and looked down at the floor somewhat self-consciously. “I’m sure Nori’ll be lucky if Dori doesn’t turn him out on his ear, cracked skull or no, never mind paying for his foolishness. I haven’t any coin, nor does Dís - and that little nugget of gossip doesn’t leave this room, understand?”

She raised her head and there was a fire in those green eyes. He was close enough to her to see that there was a little ring of brown just around the pupil. They were all the brighter for it. “Understood,” he nodded, thinking she could have told him the King was a bastard, Dwalin a scholar and Víli not hopelessly besotted with Dís and he would have gone along with it just to keep her confidence.

Hervor took the axe from him and he let it go, trying to memorize the feeling of her hand on his. It was warm and the very edges of her fingers were soft. Like velvet. At least, what he could remember of velvet. “Thanks,” she said and smiled. “And for being so sweet with Nori last night, I wouldn’t have thought you’d have such a kindly way with him.”

Glóin shrugged, a little embarrassed. “Wasn’t anything, really,” he said. Nori was moaning and groaning before the liquor hit his blood, it seemed best to humor him. He cut a pretty pitiful figure, lying there all bandaged and bruised. It didn’t feel like much at the time, other than than the thing to do. 

“Modest,” Hervor said, giving him a speculative glance. “Now, _that_ doesn’t suit you at all, I’m afraid.”

How could he be anything _but_ modest in her presence? She was all perfection and he felt like a rude, half-formed thing beside her. Glóin smiled back, a bit stupidly and opened his mouth to say something, what, he did not know, but _something_ , surely, when bellowing from the other room caught him off-guard and stoppered his tongue.

“Hervor! The hogs!”

“Coming!” his daughter called and brought the axe behind the counter, leaning it against a far wall and jogging back to Glóin. “Thanks,” she said again, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder, turning him toward the door.

Glóin’s feet brought him toward the doorway before he turned, unwilling to leave without speaking again. “I’ll, ah, see you at the festival, I expect,” he said and could have cursed himself because of _course_ he would see her at the festival.

But Hervor nodded, as though he wasn’t being an utter boor. “Aye,” she said, giving the bracelet in his hand a sad look. “I was - oh, what’s it matter, she’s told half the village already - Dís and I are planning a sword dance. A small one. _That_ was meant to go in my hair, but I suppose I should know by now not to make plans.”

“Hervor! Point him to the smithy and bid him good day!”

“Smithy’s that way,” she said, a little too loudly. With a grin so quick and sly that Glóin would have missed it if he didn’t spend every moment he was in her presence staring at her face, Hervor leaned forward and kissed him right on the cheek, pulling the door open with a clang and giving him a shove into the street. “Good day!”

Glóin stared at the door of the shop long after she turned in a flutter of red curls and rejoined her father at work. The bracelet he held in his bloodless fingers, though he knew he meant to return it to her. Taking an uncertain half-step toward the door again, he weighed the benefits of seeing her again against the risk of her father’s wrath. The metal, warmed by contact with her body, was smooth against his hand, smooth as her fingers.

And then Glóin was running down the street, right in the direction of the forge that had been pointed out to him. “Dís in?” he asked Thorin, completely bypassing all pleasantries, but the King Under the Mountain did not seem to mind.

“Dís!” he barked, gesturing to the window. “Caller.”

The sister appeared a moment later, giving him a cheerful grin. “Well, if it isn’t young Nori’s favorite pillow!” she joked. “What brings you here?”

Glóin slid the bracelet across the counter at her. “Could you rework it? Into a diadem? A small one? Och!” he smacked himself in the head with the heel of his hand. “I didn’t get her measurements - not sure how I could’ve done and her father was awfully peevish. That’s not something you’d know, by chance? It’s for Hervor.”

“I worked that out on my own,” Dís picked the bracelet up and squinted at it. “How’d you come by this anyway? She meant to give it to me herself.”

“Gave it over as payment for young Nori’s healing, I meant to tell her it wasn’t necessary, but she...”

“Comes at you like a war hammer to the head when her mind's made up, aye,” Dís nodded knowingly. “I’ll do my level best.”

“And the cost - ”

“Never mind about the cost,” she waved a hand carelessly and winked at him. “Who can put a price on love, eh?”

She waved him off and turned back to the forge, leaving Glóin looking after her, mouth hanging open. “I’m not,” he began, but sealed his lips and walked away. There was no one there to hear him and of course, he _was_. 

Warrior of uncertain skill he might be, Glóin reflected as he turned away from the smithy, but an able liar he was not. In this battle of the heart, Glóin did not feel he could rightly call himself the victor, but he hoped he might have gain a bit of ground with this latest surge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said there would be romance, dang it, and we're going to squeeze some romance into this thing! Leave it to Glóin to be the first character to actually DO something about it, rather than just sit there and pine (admittedly, there's plenty of that too).


	13. Chapter 13

The sun was setting on another day in the Blue Mountains when Óin managed to find time to look in on little Nori. When they arrived in the Ered Luin over a decade before, he saw mostly to the well-being of the Erebor-born, healing being such a personal and delicate art that most folks were reluctant to have strangers see to their well-being. Over the years, his reputation grew and now Óin found himself with a steady supply of dwarves, Longbeards and Broadbeams all, requesting his skill with potion-brewing or scalpel-wielding.

Of course, most had the courtesy to inquire after his services at a reasonable hour, but misfortune knew no timetable and last night was not the first time his long and checkered career that he’d been called to work in the middle of the night. His parents - both still living, thank the Maker - slept through the whole matter. Not that they would have been too bothered if they were roused, both were healers themselves, going back ten generations on his mother’s side and it was a tradition he was proud to carry on.

Especially if it meant visiting one of the comeliest dwarrowdams to walk beneath the earth, but Óin was old enough and wise enough to put craft before pleasure in all things and managed to greet Irpa quite pleasantly and normally when she answered the door.

“Ah! The hero of the hour,” she exclaimed warmly, waving Óin inside before he could either state his purpose or bid her good evening.

“My blushes, lass,” he replied with a small, pleased smile. “How’s your boy held up? Did you get some food and drink in him?”

Irpa nodded, “Aye, he took some tea - more water than tea, like you said. And some beef broth, he’s been complaining I’m starving him, so I think he’s on the mend. I really can’t thank you enough for seeing to him so prompt and so well.”

“I wasn’t about to send him away,” Óin said, shaking his head and wondering after all these years why folks seemed to think he was doing them a favor each time he tended to someone. It was his life’s work he was doing, no more. He could hardly send the lad away to bleed out at home. There might be some odd sorts who kept regular hours, but he was not that kind of dwarf.

A commotion from a doorway across the room made both Óin and Irpa look up. Dori was walking backward, one hand on the door handle saying, “I’m seeing to it, I’m seeing to it, don’t you dare get up!”

His lips were pursed and he looked much older than the scant century he’d seen. As Óin recalled, Dori always had been a little too mature for his years, even before they were forced into the wilderness and their dwarflings had to grow up a lot faster than they should have done. “His highness wonders - ”

“Is that him?” Nori’s voice sounded shrilly from the bedroom. “Is that Mister Óin?”

“It is, shut it!” Dori bellowed back and Irpa said something about putting the kettle on. Rolling his eyes, the elder brother opened his mouth to make an inquiry, but Nori beat him to it.

“Can I eat something that can’t be drunk from a mug now?” he shouted. “I’ll drop dead of hunger otherwise, I swear I will!”

“You won’t,” Óin replied, making his way into the bedroom, shaking his head. He knew exactly how long a dwarf of Nori’s age could go without food before succumbing to hunger - as did Nori, in fact. “If you’re well enough to shout, you’re well enough to have more than broth, I think.” The bruises around Nori’s throat were lighter now than they’d been last night and Óin tilted the boy’s head up to get a better look. “Open,” he ordered and looked inside his mouth. “How’s the tooth?”

“Fine,” Nori said, though Óin was fairly positive that he’d jump up and perform a cartwheel if it meant he could eat something substantial, never mind the pain. He unrolled some of the bandages he brought with him and gently unwrapped the wounds. The one on his scalp was coming along nicely, but he redressed it all the same. Some held that letting the air get at it was for the best, but Óin went in for wet healing himself.

“So long as you don’t chew on that side for a few days, I think you can have some bread and meat,” Óin said as he finished wrapping Nori’s chest.

“I _told_ you,” he said smugly to someone over Óin’s shoulder - probably his brother. “Didn’t I say?”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust your judgment on matters of your own health,” Dori replied sourly, but left, presumably to get his brother something to eat.

“Tea!” his mother said brightly and Nori scowled, falling back down on the pillows propping his head up. “Ah, don’t grouse,” she said, laying the mug on a table by Nori’s elbow. “Next time, let’s not get into a knife fight unarmed and we won’t be in such straits, eh?”

Nori colored and sat up, sipping his tea with a muttered thanks. The front door slammed open and shut then, Óin heard some muttered greetings from the next room and then a pair of heavy footsteps accompanied by a cheerful voice calling out, “How’s our poor wee lamb, then?”

Nori nearly spat out his tea. “Don’t start,” he said warningly. “If I hear your mates calling me ‘lamb,’ I’ll shave your beard. Don’t think I won’t, I know where you sleep.”

“Aye, as you’ve been sleeping there all day, I’ve no doubt of it,” the dirty, blonde-haired miner came into the room and patted Nori gingerly on the head. “I’ll heed your warning once you’re able to lift your arms without cringing, how’s that, me tender li’l lambchop? Ooh, I like the sound of that rather better!”

“ _Víli_ ,” Nori groaned. “Ma! Tell him you’ll double his rent if he carries on!”

Irpa only laughed. “I ought to give him the next month free after the way he took care of you, like you were his own brother. Now drink your tea, lambchop.”

“Settle down,” Víli said, pulling up his trunk to sit by Nori’s bed before he could start complaining again, “and I’ll tell you a tale or two reached us down below today. You’d not think gossip could seep through miles of rock that quick, but it does! I heard your King Under the Mountain was shouted down by a certain laid-up dwarrow lad’s elder brother who come at him spewing fire from his eyes, he were so enraged - ”

Irpa inclined her head toward the door and Óin picked up the dirty bandages, rolling them absently as he followed her out. They were untorn, if he washed them out until they were scoured and bleached to white again, he could reuse them. Under the Mountain, soiled linens could be thrown on the fire and burned, but that was a luxury now. How disappointed his masters would have been to see their eager pupil washing out bandages.

Dori looked up sharply from the larder when the two older dwarves approached, shutting the door behind them and muffling Víli’s storytelling. He’d found hard cheese and harder bread, but no meat. “What’s he on about?” he asked his mother crossly.

“Gossip. What better is there to coax a body out of bed and on its feet into the world,” Irpa replied, reaching into the pockets of her tunic and removing a few tarnished silver coins. “Would you be a darling and run along to the bake shop before it closes? We’ll have a treat tonight, eh? A fig tart or two, you know how your brother likes them.”

Dori’s mouth was a very thin line and he looked as though he _dearly_ wanted to back talk his mother, but hadn’t the nerve. Nodding his agreement, he made for the door, pausing when she called after him, “And something for Mister Óin as well, for he’ll be joining us for dinner.”

“Will I?” Óin asked, amused.

“‘Least we can do,” Irpa nodded and shooed Dori out the door. With a sweet, sly smile, she added, “In truth, I was hoping it might make you put off sending your bill.”

“If I can use these bandages again, it’ll be a small sum indeed - matter of fact, supper just about covers it,” Óin replied easily. “You’ll be paying for labor and a wee bit of inconvenience.”

“You’re so sweet. I’m surrounded by the sweetest dwarves under the earth,” Irpa said, gesturing for him to sit by the fire and Óin took her up on the offer. He’d been on his feet all day, though he was a stout dwarf, he’d not say no to an offered chair. The lady crossed to peer out the window onto the rapidly darkening street, evidently reassuring herself that her eldest was well and truly gone away before she said, “Dori, bless him, thinks I don’t know.”

“Know?”

“What Nori gets up to.” shaking her head, Irpa sighed and retrieved a cup of tea for the healer. “I know enough, not everything and in truth, I’d rather not. Might make me angry enough to turn him out on his ear if I did and I can’t imagine what trouble he’d find if he didn’t have a home to come back to.”

Óin accepted the drink graciously and eyed the dwarrowdam over the top of his mug. It was not his place to dictate how she mothered her children. Going it alone all these years must have been a trial, all her kinfolk were lost in the Mountain and her husband on the road. It was a blessing her sons were alive at all, never mind if one was overbearing and the other an incorrigible rascal.

“Your lad in there swore me to secrecy,” Óin told her. “Glad to see there’s no need - can’t imagine Dori took the news well.”

“Oh, aye, they heard _that_ in the Iron Hills,” Irpa shook her head minutely and laughed softly. “I do adore that lad and he’s terribly clever about some things, but shouting when he means to keep a secret hasn’t worked these past sixty years and isn’t like to for the _next_ sixty.” Fixing herself a cup, Irpa drew a footstool by the fireplace and sat upon it, blowing on her tea to cool it. “Our princess was quite the heroine, as I heard it. And that lovely lass Hervor as well.”

“Aye,” Óin nodded, barely keeping himself from rolling his eyes at the mention of Hervor, whose name he heard reverently from his brother’s lips a hundred times daily - thrice that number when he’d actually laid eyes on her. If Óin had not been attending to the sick and injured all day, he had no doubt his ear would have been talked off by the young fool by midday. “Found him and brought him straight to me - in spite of his protests.”

“Dís has always been a gem where Nori’s concerned,” Irpa informed him fondly. “D’you know, she called him her little brother when they were younger? I always thought that was so dear.”

Once, it troubled Óin deeply to see some of their customs and traditions fall by the wayside during their travels. It still brought a quick flash of shame to mind when he recalled disapproving of little Dís hunting, gathering firewood and walking the perimeter of the camp with her brothers and his cousins all within hearing of her lady mother. He supposed he was lucky Freya did not give him a harsh tongue lashing for that, she could be fierce when her temper was roused, but he quickly learned that if they were unbending in their adherence to tradition, they would die in the wilderness.

Where once he balked at princesses gathering firewood, healers reusing bandages and warriors felling trees with their battle axes, he now was grateful that his people were able to bend their stiff necks enough to survive. For where was pride if they were all of them dead?

His uncle Fundin said that, or something very like it, years ago when he caught Óin complaining. Funny how Balin was forever quoting philosophers of old when his own father had wisdom enough to fill thousands of books. Possibly he wasn’t showy enough for his learned son. “She’s a good lass,” he said, feeling only approval that she had such a caring nature and not bristling, as he might have done when she misnamed kin. “Takes after her grandmother.”

“Ha!” Irpa tittered a little, nodding enthusiastically. “I’d not thought of that, but you’re right, she does! Looks-wise, anyway, I’ve never found anything to fear from the girl, she’s a good bit less...well, must be because I’ve known the lass for so long, but I always thought the Queen was a mite terrifying. I never spoke to her, we weren’t kin, but I clearly remember shaking in my boots at the prospect. But then, she was your aunt, you likely remember her differently.”

Óin nodded. Where Irpa remembered an intimidating figure of a dwarf, always armed to the teeth with eyes that could pick out a raven on the horizon and shoot an arrow through its heart quick as blinking, he recalled a booming laugh and strong arms that would hoist him into her shoulders or roll about on the hearth rug for a wrestle. “She’s good for her brother. Thorin’s got more of his father in him than she has,” he said and did not mean it as a compliment.

“Thráin was...burdened,” Irpa said diplomatically, as one did to a member of a noble family about their high-ranking kinsman. “Thorin’s done well. He’s very young. They all are.”

And so he was. Young enough to be Óin’s son. For all his learning and grey beard, Óin still thought of Balin as a bit of a dwarfling as well. All their true elders dropped away one by one leaving this kingdom of children to fend for itself. Under the circumstances, he agreed that Thorin had done very well, though the lad had a look about him that boded ill. A dangerous, hungry look that thinned his mouth and darkened his eyes. Óin had seen the same look on Thráin’s face countless times and upon the face of the King more and more as the years went on. Thorin might have inherited his features from Sigdís, but he was Thrór’s heir through and through. Thór was a good king in many ways and the most corrupt rule of his age in others. Óin could not yet say how Thorin would rank, for as Irpa said, he was young and it would be many years yet - if the Maker saw fit - before he would rest beneath the earth and be judged by the writers of their histories.

“Copper for your thoughts?” Irpa asked and Óin realized he’d sunk into a brooding silence; it was not only the King’s direct line who suffered from foul moods.

“Thinking on my kin,” he replied, trying to smile, but knowing his heart wasn’t it in. “And I suppose they’re valued higher than a few coppers.”

“Aye, but coppers are all I have left,” Irpa said, but her mirth seemed genuine. Óin could recall those who seemed to recollect their spirits sooner than others in their exile. He always remembered those who laughed first in those early days for he was one of the dwarves who would glare or curse until their smiles faded and the light left their eyes. Irpa, he remembered, was one, but she never seemed cowed by his stern words or looks. She would smile back at him until his were the eyes sliding away, as though he’d done something disrespectful.

Now he realized he had and would have apologized for his behavior, if he thought she remembered it. After such lives as they lived, who would recall a few unkind words from a distant kinsman or a sour expression?

“These children...” he began, and shook his head. “Never mind. The thought’s gone.”

“Is it?” Irpa asked, taking another sip of tea and ‘hmming’ at him very distractingly. The arch of her brow was both coy and inviting. A bewitching sort, was Irpa. Small wonder Nori got in such trouble, he had too much of his mother’s spirit in him, but not enough of her sense in wielding it.

Sighing, Óin rubbed his eyes and said, “It’s a bad hand of suffering they’ve been dealt. A very bad hand.”

“True, but you’ve got to play the hand you’re given,” Irpa countered. “And I’d wager you’ve suffered a bit in your own day, Master Healer.”

“I was full grown when the Mountain fell,” Óin replied. “I didn’t lose...” _a husband, a mother, a father, nor brothers and sisters, as you did, my fine lady. Nor would I have been so strong about it if I had._ “I was lucky.”

“You’re generous,” Irpa said. “And that’s no bad quality, our lives being what they are. There’s some who wear their good fortune around them like a silken shawl. You know the sort, stuck up on their own importance, thinking the Maker favored them, when really, it’s more like if they _did_ suffer as some do, they’d collapse from the strain. I don’t remember you doing that. I remember you nursing the little ones who’d fallen ill, never asking for pay, nor more than what folks could afford when you did. As you still do.”

Óin shifted a bit uncomfortably. “No common sense in doing otherwise,” he said after a pause. “Shall I let my bandages collect dust and my tinctures grow rancid ‘cos folks can’t give me the gold that’s due?”

“You could follow the example of the dwarves who stood against old King Thingol,” she remarked. “I don’t know what the equal story would be for healers. Breaking an arm you’ve set?”

“I could do, and look what became of them,” he replied sternly. Óin was not one for dwelling on ancient history; that was cousin Balin’s task. He tended to the unwell in the present and kept one eye on the future. It was how he lived from day to day. “It’s my craft,” he said finally. “I could no more cease work than I could cease breathing.”

“You’re not married,” she observed correctly, cocking her head to the side in a seemingly inquisitive way, but there was a little something else to her expression, lurking just under the surface. “Too much in love with your craft?”

“It takes up a great deal of time,” Óin said carefully. Instinct told him to take care, but he could not say why that was. Sharing a cup of tea with a concerned mother was nothing unusual in his line of work. Rarely did the firelight favor their features so. And even more rarely did they loop a smooth, shining braid around one of their fingers, absently stroking their hair. Óin drained his cup; his mouth felt a little dry all of a sudden.

“And you’re very devoted,” she said, leaning forward and looking at him under impossibly long eyelashes. “I wondered - ” but whatever she wondered went unspoken for the door swung open and Dori was back with their supper. “That took no time at all!” his mother said. If Óin had not been watching and listening to her _very_ closely, he would have missed the dismay in her voice entirely. As Dori did.

“Miss Thyra - the pastry cook’s eldest daughter - was locking up for the evening, she seemed very eager to do so, though I made it just as clear that the clock had not struck the hour,” he said, unwrapping his parcels. “We got the last of the fig tarts, as requested.”

“Good lad,” Irpa said, taking Óin’s empty cup from his hands, brushing his fingers very deliberately, lingering a little longer than was called for. “Come along, lads, supper!” she sang out to the closed bedroom door. Then, with a glance at Óin out of the corner of her eye added, “Then off to bed.”

When she winked at him, Óin felt a slow smile spread across his face. “As the lady wishes,” he replied and joined her at the supper table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't mind me, I'm just working through some Gróinson feelings. And I missed Irpa, I hope you did too! Why should the teenagers get to have all the fun, eh? 
> 
> My headcanon of the Queen Under the Mountain (aka Sigdís) being Fundin and Gróin's elder sister first turned up in _A Good Man Goes to War_ , then bled into _To the Marriage of True Minds_ before it snuck into this fic. I promised I'd try to keep it contained to one story, but now that I've written her, I like her too much to leave well enough alone! I hope you guys don't mind too much.


	14. Chapter 14

Dwalin and Dís found themselves alone at the forge the morning before Durin’s Day Eve. Thorin was called away in conference with the noblemen of the Blue Mountains to lay out trade routes and prepare the caravans in anticipation of the journey South for the autumn trade with Elves and Men. Before he left, Thorin gave them a half serious talking-to about how he expected them to _work_ while he was away and not spend their time joking, arguing or making up excuses to treat themselves at the bakery every hour on the hour.

“I’m the elder of the two of us,” Dwalin reminded him with a fond smile as Thorin laid out his finest coat following their usual evening smoke. “If anything, I should be the one lecturing _you_.”

“Three years isn’t so great a difference as that,” Thorin replied, trying to smother a smile behind a stern expression. “And if it was yourself alone who was minding the forge I wouldn’t say a word about it, but that sister of mine has a way of putting you off your work.”

Dís had come in late, but not so late she couldn’t smoke with them. She looked up from the mending basket and, as a display of her maturity and workmanlike nature, stuck her tongue out at Thorin. “I don’t put him off work,” she protested. “Just the opposite. I’m an inspiration!”

“You’re a menace,” Dwalin said flatly.

But neither was distracted overmuch by the other. Quite the contrary to what Thorin expected of them, the pair were so wrapped up in their own work that the only heed they paid one another was to avoid colliding when they needed to cross the smithy to make use of the fire or fetch a tool. When the time came for one to fetch the noonday meal, Dís seemed content to let the hour pass unmarked;

She was bent low over a pitch bowl chasing a circlet of gold, steel liner in hand as she very carefully outlined a simple design. Dwalin watched her in silence for a few minutes, taking in the look of concentration of her face with a an expression of extreme fondness. Her tongue wormed its way out from behind her teeth and the pink tip was visible between her otherwise pursed lips. It was a habit she’d developed when she first started apprenticing, he used to joke that he’d have it out with hot tongs. Never broke her of it, nor did he really want to. It was utterly endearing.

But it wouldn’t do for the lass to lose herself in her work so much that she starved. With Thorin gone for the day, he was in charge of looking after her, never mind that she was grown. Most days, Dwalin would argue, Thorin needed looking after just as badly, even if he bore the attention ill.

“Food?” he asked and Dís almost jumped. Luckily, her hands were steady and did not ruin her work.

“Oh!” she said, eyes flickering up to look at him in surprise, as though she’d forgotten he was there at all. “Right, I’ll go in a minute, once I’ve cleaned the pitch off before it hardens.”

“I’ll go,” Dwalin offered. “You’re well in it. It’ll be a fine piece, once it’s done. Should suit Hervor.”

The surprised expression deepened into one of unadulterated shock. Dís’s mouth fell open as if to protest, then closed, blue eyes open wide as dinner plates. “You know?” she asked at last. It was such a strange look she gave him, she looked almost crestfallen.

“Young Nori’s got a big mouth,” he nodded, pulling up a stool and sitting by her. “And I’m not so slow as the rumors would have it.”

“What rumors?” Dís asked, appalled, as she cleaned the half-finished diadem. “All I’ve ever heard tell is you’re the most terrible, deadliest foe to cross swords with an Orc - and that’s no mere rumor, it’s a hard fact.”

Dwalin smirked and reached forward to tuck a stray lock of hair out of her face. His fingers just scraped her cheek and his thumb brushed the shell of her ear. And that was when it happened.

Dwalin developed quite the terrifying reputation for himself in the wild. His father had been known as Fundin the Fearless, but it would have been more appropriate to call his son Dwalin the Fearsome. Other dwarrows who did not know him were afraid of him, even after living so many years among them there were plenty of Broadbeams who scurried out of the way when he approached, fearful of treading on his shadow lest it provoke his wrath. Dís found that terribly funny for she adored Dwalin and never found him anything other than thoroughly lovable. He was her protector, her playmate, her almost-brother.

Now, looking up into his eyes, for the first time in her life Dís found that she was afraid of him.

Rising, she almost dropped Hervor’s hair adornment in her haste to get up and away. Her heart was beating oddly fast and her breath caught in her throat. Dwalin rose and made to follow her. “You burn yourself?” he asked, concerned.

“Nah,” Dís managed, trying to swallow with a mouth that was suddenly dry as a bone. “Know what? You stay, I’ll go. I could use a walk.” Without another word, she fled the smithy, but the pressure in her chest did not lift, no matter how many steadying breaths she took or how quickly she walked.

It was not to the bake shop that she walked, she was dimly aware that she was in no fit state to see Thyra. Lass would know in an instant that she was upset about something and then she’d want to pull up a chair and have a talk, but Dís was in no mood for talking. She just wanted to run away.

 _Why?_ It was only Dwalin, after all, who she’d seen nearly daily for the entirety of her life. What changed? Same dark hair (well, less of it than in previous years, but same color). Same fine nose that had been broken four times that she knew about and once that she wasn’t meant to have heard tell of, but had anyway. But he was different now.

It was his eyes, she decided. Brown, as ever they were, but they’d never seemed so warm before, so kind. Nor had she ever seen those flecks of gold hidden deep inside, like a secret treasure only she was privy to.

He was handsome. But he’d always been handsome. And tall and strong and _wonderful_. They were qualities she had always been aware he possessed, but it felt like she’d never really known it until today.

Dís found herself by the stream behind the shops, only half a mile from where she and Hervor had been holding their practices. Kneeling beside a brook she splashed some of the cold water onto her hot face. Looking at her rippling reflection, she saw that her skin was red, as though she had been burned after all. But by what fire?

Slumping back down to sit beside the stream, she recalled now that this was not an event as earth-shattering and sudden as all that. The more she thought on it, the more she felt like it crept upon her, as the first days of spring did, icy cold until the birds came back and sang overhead, bringing the sun and heat with them. It was a few years since she started admiring the breadth of Dwalin’s shoulders for more than his ability to bear tired dwarflings along miles of open road. And some months since her eyes took to lingering on his strong, broad hands gripping a hammer or cradling the bowl of his pipe. Maybe her embraces lasted a little longer than strictly necessary nowadays.

Moaning, she shook her head, but the thoughts wouldn’t budge. _Sweet!_ her mind whispered laughingly, sounding of Hervor and Frerin at once, two souls who always spoke honestly to her. _You’re sweet on Dwalin!_

Lofty goals she set for herself. Dwalin the Fearsome, Dwalin the Orc-Slayer, Dwalin the kindest and best of Dwarves. Well, why shouldn’t she love him? Dís could not imagine any who encountered Dwalin _not_ loving him. He was the very mold of valor from which all others ought to be cast. And she...

She was his shadow. His tagalong. His almost-sister. Wasn’t she?

A sharp whistle from nearby made her start and her hand went to the ever-present dagger hanging from her belt. _Never go out in the open unarmed._ A piece of wisdom from Dwalin’s own lips which she heeded without question. He would never mislead her where safety was concerned, especially her safety.

“Hallo!” A long thin line on the horizon waved and Dís knew from the voice alone that it was Bofur. “Weren’t expecting you to take a rest this time o’the day!”

“Can’t a body have a spot of privacy round here?” she muttered just loudly enough for him to hear as he jogged closer. Dís tried to sound surly and annoyed, but she was deeply relieved. Unlike Thorin, she never wanted to be left alone with unpleasant thoughts and there was no better cure for melancholy than good company. Bofur was some of the best the Blue Mountains had to offer.

Either reading her true thoughts under her words or not noticing her apparent ire at all, Bofur flopped on the grass beside Dís, favoring her with a lopsided smile. “Not when a body’s so well thought of as yours, and such good company!”

“Or another body’s skiving off work,” Dís said, noting the dust on his tunic and hair. “Shouldn’t you be below?”

Bofur nodded, but explained that himself and his brother had a late night with their cousin and did not wake up in time to make their usual morning trek to the bakery for their midday meal. “I considered trustworthiest, so I got the job of going up for it,” he said, holding up a sack as proof of his successful quest.

“You were the one who’d be least missed, you mean,” Dís tried to tease him, but her heart wasn’t in it. “And I hate to be the one to tell you, but you’re a long ways away from the mines.”

“I’m taking the long way back,” he replied, cocking his head at her. Bofur was a droll chap, always looking for a laugh, but just like the rest of his family, he was sensitive to upset and driven by a pure, unselfish motivation to find the source of another’s unhappiness and give it a thorough routing. “Something on your mind? What’re _you_ doing so far from the forge?”

Dís’s mind was at war with itself. On the one hand, she wanted to snap, _None of your business_ and stalk away. Bofur would be a bit hurt, but chalk it up to Longbeard moroseness and forgive her the outburst even before she apologized. On the other, she felt as if she kept her thoughts to herself, she’d burst apart with feeling.

Taking another deep, steadying breath, she looked Bofur squarely in the eyes and asked, “You ever look at someone you’ve known forever and a day when, all of a sudden, it’s as if you’ve never seen ‘em before?”

Bofur recognized that this was a serious inquiry and gave it due consideration before replying. “Nah.”

Sagging a little, Dís lowered her eyes to the grass. “Not once?”

“Not never,” he shrugged almost apologetically. “Why, have you?”

Nodding, Dís flopped back onto the grass, shielding her eyes from the sun’s glare with her arm. She felt so foolish, as though she was acting out one of the ancient love songs in some mummer’s farce. Her life was anything but a romance, it might serve as a passable ballad, but nothing grander than that. “And I was just about knocked out of my boots.”

Bofur lay beside her on his stomach, resting his head on his crossed arms. “Anyone I know?”

“Aye,” she said, blowing a breath out hard through her lips. “Stupid. I feel so _stupid._ ”

“D'you know, I had this same chat not two days ago?” he said musingly. “Only it was with me brother then, on account o’him being sweet on Thyra.”

“That’s an easy fix,” Dís replied, lolling her head to the side to squint over at Bofur. “Tell Bombur to dance with her tomorrow. It’ll be a start. He won’t need to unstick his lips while they’re dancing - I don’t know why he finds it so hard to string a few words together around her, she thinks he’s sweet as anything.”

“Does she?” Bofur asked eagerly, smiling broadly. “Mind if I pass that on? I won’t tell him where I got it from, only say a little bird were passing by and stopped to rest itself on me shoulder.”

“A busybody raven?” Dís asked, sighing. “Your brother’s sweet, not stupid. Tell him I said it, _someone_ needs to say something between the two of ‘em, I’ll not have them going the next hundred years smiling at each other and doing nothing about it.”

“Seems you’ve got this well thought out,” he observed reasonably. “Can’t you take the same advice yourself?”

Dís hesitated, but shook her head, placing her arm over her eyes again. She danced with Dwalin all the time, when there was music to be had. And she talked to him. Embraced him. Sat upon his lap when he insisted on taking the most comfortable chair by the fire since she knew if she fought him for it, she’d lose.

If she asked Dwalin to dance the following night, what would make it different from the thousand other time she’d taken up his hand and he indulged her? The fact of the matter was that it would be just the same in his mind. When she felt that jolt of new awareness, he hardly seemed moved. Dwalin acted just as he always had: steady, protective, concerned. He never brought her gifts of mithril or capped warg’s fangs with gold and fashioned them into a necklace for her, as lovers did in the songs.

Lovers. Oh, Mahal, she did not know whether to laugh out loud at her own idiocy or not. To spare Bofur, she kept it to herself, but turned away from him, burying her face in her arms. Fool, fool, fool. And now she was keeping him waiting.

“A dance wouldn’t do,” she said at last. “A dance would be the least of it.”

“Not a start?” he asked gently, rising up and peering over her shoulder at her. Her hair was in her face again and he brushed it away. There was no spark of understanding, no flash of fire in her blood and heart. This was just the thoughtful act of a friend, nothing more.

“Not for me,” she shook her head one last time and rose up on her knees. She’d tarried too long already, if she stayed away Dwalin would know something was wrong. “I’ve got to go.”

“Me too,” Bofur agreed, picking up his sack and rising to his feet as she did. Before they parted ways, he put a reassuring hand on her arms and smiled. “Don’t look so poorly now, folks’ll take to calling you Longface, not Longbeard.”

That prompted a smile out of her, albeit a small one.

“Me Ma had a saying, once,” he said and proceeded to share it with her. “'Everything’ll turn out alright in the end.'”

Dís’s smile turned a bit sardonic as she retorted, “Reckon she borrowed that from someone else. And...I’ve got to say, speaking from personal experience, it doesn’t always.”

“Ah, you didn’t let me finish, lass,” he chastised her, bopping her on the nose with one wagging finger. “'If it’s not alright, then it’s not the end.'” Whistling, he made his way back to work, giving Dís one final wave before he disappeared down the hill.

It would have been easy to be cynical. To brush off Bofur’s words as that of a dwarf who had not seen enough of suffering and still believed the fairy stories learned at his mother’s knee, but Dís’s thoughts were not so cruelly disposed. In all honestly the words, lighthearted and too optimistic by half, made her feel a little better.

By the time she bought their meal and returned to the forge the sun was burning hot overhead, too hot for the end of the year. Dwalin was there when she came back, his manner a little wary, but Dís only told him she’d been waylaid by Bofur on her way into town and he knew how fond that dwarf was of talking.

They resumed their work, again moving around one another in the forge and speaking little. Dwalin did not again speak of the diadem or her purpose in working on it. When Dís took up her chisel again to finish Hervor’s present she hesitated a second, looking at the pattern only barely sunken in the soft metal.

This was supposed to mark them out as women, to show their kindred and kith that they had come of age and were worthy members of the community, dwarves of strength and skill. How could she dare make so public a declaration when she still felt so young and unsure? Or, Dís chanced a glance at Dwalin, when she did not know her own heart?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so begins the kick-off to 90 years of heartache. Some of you might recognize the 'Ur family motto from _The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel_ , I thought it was fitting. I also love Bofur and Dís as unofficial BFFs, so there's that.


	15. Chapter 15

Bofur was a dwarf who prided himself on three things: his family, his work, and his honesty. Some might call him blunt as a mattock’s head, others might be less polite and term him a gobshite, but he thought he was well within his rights to speak as he thought - especially when his words might work to someone’s benefit. Especially especially someone he cared about.

After he conversed with Dís by the water, his mind had been all a-whirl with thoughts and ideas and decisions that he realized had been far too long in the making. Not one for running unless he was giving of being chased, he jogged along back to work, braids bouncing on his shoulders with every step and made record time from the marketplace to the mines as a result.

Bofur considered himself a fair big brother, most days. When he and Bombur were wee sprogs, he was not to proud to admit, it took him a while to warm up to the newest little dwarfling in his life. Unsurprising since Bofur spent most of his youth getting in scrapes and raising merry havoc while for many years Bombur did little more than eat and smile - truth be told, those were still two of his brother’s favorite activities. But time passed and he grew up into a hard working, sweet-natured dwarf who Bofur was happy to have charge of when their parents passed.

If Bombur did have one glaring fault, in his brother’s opinion, it was that he was too shy for his own good. Easy enough with family, Bombur had a tendency to shut his mouth up tight as a miser’s fist round a gold piece. Bofur talked enough for both of them, had done since they were children and Bombur was too bashful to speak to the merchants in the marketplace when their Ma, and later Bifur, sent them out to run errands. Though he was happy to look after his younger brother, Bofur couldn’t coddle him forever.

Besides, he thought as he descended into the mines, there were certain questions a body had to ask themselves that don’t sound so good coming from another.

It truly was excellent timing, he returned with his sack of food just as his fellows entered the communal dining hall. It lay deep underground, but was brightly lit with torches since the cavern was old and long since cleared of anything which might blow the mountain to the winds when a spark ignited. Bombur waved him over to their seats on the bench and Bofur dodged his fellow workers to join them, squeezing in by Víli and speaking breathlessly, but quickly, slightly winded from his run.

Without preamble, he dumped their meal onto the tabletop and announced, “Bombur m’lad, I come to a conclusion just now: You’ve got to pluck up that courage o’yours and ask Thyra for a dance tomorrow eve.”

One of his brother’s hands, which had been reaching eagerly for a meat pie, paused and hovered uncertainly over the food. “Ah...I don’t think so,” he blushed as red as his hair and devoted all of his attention to unwrapping it.

Víli raised both his pale eyebrows at Bofur, swallowing down his beer before he asked, “You reckoned on that just now? I been saying for ages he should have at it! You always say nature’s got to take its course!”

“They’re moving slower than the spring thaw!” Bofur complained, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. “Nah, changed me mind, he's got t'show his mettle tomorrow, it’s as good a time as any. Better! For she’ll be in a fine mood with the holiday and _he’ll_ be in a fine mood for sight of her!”

“I’m right here, y’know,” Bombur muttered to his pastry, eyes flickering up in annoyance. “What’s got you so interested so sudden?”

A hand went to Bofur’s heart as though his younger brother had him deeply wounded. “I’m always interested where you’re concerned,” he declared, giving the top of Bombur’s boot a firm tap beneath the tabletop. “I had a talk with - ah - well, I were thinking to meself, seems you’ve been pining after that lass for an age now and not done a thing about it! S’fine for Elves to moon and moon, but you’re a dwarf! What’s taking so long?”

“I’m just...” Bombur chewed for a minute, face contorted, trying to come up with a word that would explain why it was he never declared himself to Thyra. “Ordinary.”

Bofur and Víli exchanged a bewildered glance and the latter cleared his throat. “I’ll say something now and I don’t know as you’ll be feeling better once I’ve said it - likely not - but I don’t think most would say Thyra’s...disordinary. Or unordinary. Inordinary?”

“Extraordinary,” Bofur supplied and Víli nodded.

“Aye, that’s it. Extraordinary - not that she ain’t perfectly lovely!” he added, since Bombur looked nothing short of crestfallen at the assessment. “But...you can’t just go about your days thinking there’s no point going after things you want ‘cos you’re not good enough or some other bastard might get there first.”

“Hear, hear!” Bofur said, thumping his knee and causing a small cloud of dust to fly off. “You got to seize the day, as they say.”

“Who says?” Bombur asked skeptically.

Bofur stroked the edge of his mustache, considered the matter briefly, then shrugged. “Can’t recall. But it’s not a bad bit of advice. Worst she can say is nay.”

“S’not the worst,” Bombur shook his head mournfully. “The worst would be her laughing in me face, me crying and taking down half the village as I ran back up the house.”

His dining companions paused and then nodded as one. “You’re right,” Vili replied.

“That would be the worst,” Bofur agreed. “But it won’t come to that, surely! She’s not gone and pledged herself to no other lad! ‘Sides, she’s _awfully_ fond of you.”

“She’s _kind_ t’me,” his brother corrected him. “Just as well, she’s kind to everyone.”

“She smiles at you big enough to light up the deepest cavern!” Vili protested. He’d certainly seen enough of Thyra’s smile to become an expert on its state, nearly all she and Bombur did in one another’s presence was smile at each other and, in his humble opinion, that was certainly enough to be getting on with.

“She’s got to smile that way, she’s at work,” Bombur shook his head stubbornly. “Her Da wouldn’t make no business if she scowled at the lot of us what goes in every day, would he?”

Bofur sighed dramatically, and almost fell off the bench with the force of it. “Me dearest, darlin’ wee brother,” he said. “You got to think better on yourself!”

“Agreed!” Víli said, slamming a hand forcefully on the tabletop. “I’d list off your qualities as shine like diamonds, but you’re such a gem that’d just make you blush, so I’ll keep ‘em to meself. But take it from me, she’d be mad not to have you!”

“She’s already sweet on you,” Bofur assured him. “A little bird got to talking and told me as much. Good authority it was too, the best.”

“I don’t know what matchmaking ravens you’re acquainted with,” Bombur replied, smiling a little morosely. “But you’ll forgive me if I don’t take their word for it.”

“It was Dís, you stubborn mule!” Bofur declared, reaching across the table to give Bombur a thwack upon the shoulder. “She and me _both_ agree that something needs t’be done ‘bout you and Thyra ‘fore we’re all of us old and grey.”

“Dís said that?” Víli asked.

“More or less,” Bofur replied, then his face lit up. Ha-ha, he’d worked it out after all! The fact that his friend still seemed out of sorts following their chat had been niggling at the back of his mind, though the solution to Bombur’s problems sucked up most of his attention.

_You ever looked at someone you’ve known forever and all of a sudden it’s as if you’ve never seen ‘em before?_

Now, she certainly hadn’t known Víli forever, but ten years was long enough, even by dwarf standards. He thought the world of Dís, had ever since he laid eyes on the lass and she’d flirted a bit, but not in earnest...at least Bofur never thought so. Regarding his brother and his dearest friend, he concluded that there was no possible explanation for the young smith’s odd mood. As far as Bofur was concerned, Bombur and Víli were the finest lads ever fashioned by the Maker and any dwarrowdam worth her beard ought to be charging the mine laden down with courting gifts enough to fill the tunnels for them.

The fact that the dwarrowdams who worked as miners were not sparing a glance at their little group mattered naught. Bombur and Víli didn’t want scores of ladies, they only wanted one a-piece. And Bofur did not find that request as unreasonable as all that. Surely Dís was talking about Víli. He looked on her so tenderly and loved her so dearly. Who else could it have been?

“And here’s a bit of good advice for you, boyo,” Bofur threw an arm around Víli’s shoulder. “If our Bombur asks Thyra for a dance, you’ve got to ask Dís - and the other way round too, if Víli asks Dís, brother, you got to ask Thyra.”

“Víli’s danced with Dís afore,” Bombur said, holding his hands up before him in a gesture of surrender, even as Víli extended his hand to shake and seal the deal.

“So I have!” he replied confidently. “You want to talk about extraordinary, if a lowly miner such as me gets a princess for a dancing partner, what’s to stop Thyra taking your hand? Hmm? What’s the matter, then, your tongue been cut out, laddie?”

Indeed, Bombur could make no answer to this perfectly logical observation. Dís was a princess, though she did not look like any princess from Bombur’s imagination. Not that he’d met a princess before he met her and hadn’t thought much on their appearances, but Dís who was always covered in soot and sweat, wearing her brother’s cast-offs, seemed an odd image of royalty. And Víli asked her to dance - more to the point, she asked him more than once, a definite sign that she stomped the boards out of favor rather than simple manners.

“Dís said Thyra says she reckons you’re sweet,” Bofur added.

Víli had not let his hand drop and waggled his eyebrows at Bombur. “C’mon then, let’s shake on it. And if Thyra turns you down, I’ll dance the dances with you so’s you don’t have to run home a-weeping.”

“If you dance all the dances with me, you won’t have time for Dís,” Bombur pointed out.

“I’ll spurn her company for your sake,” Víli said solemnly, but with a crooked grin lurking at the corner of his mouth. And that sealed it. To hear such a promise of sacrifice warmed Bombur’s heart and bolstered his confidence more than any of his brother’s boasting and bravado. Nodding, he extended his hand and clasped Víli’s over the middle of the table.

“Alright,” he said softly, but firmly. “Done.”

Bofur let out a hoot of approval and clapped his hands. “There we are, lads! Sealed and in the presence of witnesses.” Raising his voice he called to their fellows, “Everyone saw them promises made, eh?”

“Aye.” There was a general rumbling of agreement, largely intended to appease Bofur so the rest of the mining crew could finish their meal in peace.

Feeling every bit the triumphant warrior, Bofur relaxed back onto the bench taking an absolutely enormous bite of pastry. “It’ll be a good night,” he predicted, spraying crust down the front of his jerkin as he spoke. “I can feel it in me bones.”

When the blow of a whistle signaled the workers that their break was over, Bofur grabbed Víli’s arm and pulled him aside. “I don’t think you’ll have to make good on your promise,” he whispered in his ear, “but mark me: Dís’ll be sore put out if you don’t save her a dance.”

Víli couldn’t help but grin at him. “Oh, aye? You got that from your little raven, eh?”

“I did,” Bofur replied smugly. “That and more, she - ”

But the sound of five dozen stomping boots drowned him out.

 _What?_ Víli signed as he strapped his boiled leather cap on and afixed the candle that would be lit once he was in his assigned spot.

 _New eyes,_ Bofur signed back, fumbling for a moment as he exchanged his trustworthy hat for his work cap. _Struck._

 _She fought?_ Víli signed back, confused. _Black eye?_

 _No,_ he replied clumsily, with one hand. _New eyes._

_Glass eyes?_

_Too much speech_ , Bofur concluded at last, the moment before he shouldered his pick. _Talk later._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I just love the Broadbeams. So very much. I want them to have a radio call-in show where they give people advice. I'm not saying it would be good advice, but it would definitely be heartfelt.


	16. Chapter 16

Dís ran for the clearing by the brook at top speed. The nature of her work left her in the forge until the last possible moment and she bolted the second she was through with her finish-work. First order of business would be to see if the damn thing actually _fit_. If not, no matter how dearly Hervor might have liked to wear it, she would have to do without for there was no way she could re-cast it and have the piece ready to go before the festival began.

Work, as her mother often said, was the best distraction under the sun. Plying one’s trade was a cure for restless minds and idle hands. Dís was so caught up in her filing and carving that she hardly took any notice of Dwalin bustling about the back of the smithy. And he was so caught up in his own doings that he hardly spoke except to thank her for fetching the food.

They had not lost quite everything when the Mountain fell. They still had their bodies, after all, and their work - indeed, if they did not work, they did not eat, a reality which many suffered through those first long winters relying largely upon the charity of their cousins in the Iron Hills to ensure their continued survival. Dwarves were ill-suited to begging, however and when they could work they did. Perhaps that was how they survived as long as they did before finally settling. Even if they had no treasures, no gold, and no home, they had their tools and their minds and their strong hands.

If those simple things saw her people through decades of struggling, Dís could bite her tongue and dry her tears and get on with the rest of the afternoon.

 _Who are you, to feel so sorry for yourself?_ she chided herself, forcing a smile as the sight of Hervor’s bright red curls met her grateful eyes. _You’ve a roof over your head, work at your hands and family and friends aplenty. That’s enough to be getting on with._

Hiding a hand behind her back, Dís did not pause before breathlessly announcing, “Got something for you!”

To her simultaneous surprise and amusement, Hervor braced herself, arms up, ready to fight.

Laughing, Dís remarked, “You’ve an awfully queer way of receiving gifts.”

Hervor relaxed and laughed at herself. “Well, I’m much more mannerly when I know it _is_ a gift. When Heidrek said such and had a hand behind his back, usually he meant to give me a blow on the arm.”

“ _Brothers_ ,” Dís rolled her eyes in commiseration. It was not a trick Thorin even played on her, but one Frerin would have enjoyed if he had been clever enough to think of it. “Mine’s much nicer than a blow on the arm - let’s do this proper, shall we? Eyes closed!”

“I’ll have you know this is a tremendous act of trust on my part,” Hervor informed her, nevertheless dutifully closing her eyes. “I’m half-expecting you to shove a frog down my back or pelt me with river mud or - what’s that, then?”

An absolutely enormous grin split Dís’s face in twain and she felt happier in that moment than she had in weeks. Hervor’s hair was simply braided to stay out of the way of her work, but the circlet fit upon her head nicely and looked quite well too. Molten gold against red flame. “Open up,” Dís ordered her, giving Hervor a nudge toward the stream. “And take a look.”

Hervor obeyed and knelt before the stream, waiting until the flow of the water became smooth enough that she could get a look at herself. Then she shrieked and almost fell in.

“You’re a damned _witch_ ,” she shouted joyously, jumping to her feet and hugging Dís so hard and with such enthusiasm that both of the girls fell down onto the grass. Like an over-eager pup, Hervor peppered the younger girl’s face with kisses until Dís was shrieking herself and pushing her off with half hearted shoves. “Thank you, thank you, _thank you_!”

The water did not provide the greatest view of the circlet, but it was a fine piece of quality work. The gold of the original bracelet had been melted down and strengthened with silver and copper to both increase its size and ensure long use. Dís carefully chased an outline of runes which told a story of legend - being cheeky, she’d chosen the tale of Roan and his Beloved of Stone.

It was said, in the days following the first passing of Durin the Deathless, there lived a dwarrow sculptor named Roan who was enamored of a lady, high-born and fair - yet he was unsure which he loved more, his lady or his craft. She endeavored to prove that she was worthy of his regard and so set herself a quest. Roan was determined to complete a sculpture of such skill and beauty that even those who drew close would not know if it was stone or flesh. The subject, he determined, would come from his own imagination for there was no perfect face or form in the world that would suit him. To complete the work, he needed pearls and two perfect sapphires for the eyes and his beloved swore she would go to the deepest caverns to mine them for him.

She ventured abroad and her own adventures were recorded in their history’s annals though none knew her name. To win the pearls she aided seafaring Elves in the slaying of a great, hideous Leviathan from the ocean’s depths but it was in the mountains where she met her doom. The winter was harsh and an avalanche trapped her deep within the rock where no creature dared venture to retrieve her. Roan, upon learning of the fate whom of she whom he had loved, he knew now, _better_ than his work, lay down his chisel and wept bitterly. He did not work again and went himself into the heart of the mountains to brave the cold and danger to recover her.

When he found her lying deep in the rock after the spring thaw, he was shocked to discover her body perfectly preserved by the cold. Though dead, she seemed as one in repose from her ruby-red lips to her onyx-dark eyelashes. In her hand she clutched the pearls and sapphires she vowed to deliver to him.

After his beloved was laid to rest within the rock, Roan took up his chisel and his clay and so set to work once again creating his masterwork. This time, however, he drew his inspiration not from an impossible imagining, but from all he remembered of she who loved him so well and died for his sake. Night and day he labored, first in clay, then in wax and finally in marble. He took neither food nor drink and expected when his work was done that he would lay down at the feet of the sculpture and so join his beloved in the Halls of Waiting.

With thin and shaking hands, he set the sapphires within the rock and fell to his knees at the base of the stone, face uplifted so that the last thing he saw in this world would be her face.

But Mahal kept a watchful eye upon His children. Long had he watched Roan, saw his blindness, then his sorrow and His heart was moved with pity for his plight and admiration for his last great work. And so the Maker called forth a great rushing wind, a blazing light like fire and lightning blinded Roan and those sapphire eyes blinked and those marble limbs moved and were made flesh.

There was not room enough on the circlet to render the tale in its entirety, but Dís recorded the words of a song describing Roan’s despair and the Maker’s mercy.

_As winter calls he will starve all but to see the stone be life._

It always put Dís in a romantical mindset and considering how the bracelet came to be in her possession, she thought it was only fitting. “Where’d you get it?” Hervor demanded, sitting up on Dís’s stomach and ceasing her affectionate assault. “This _is_...” her hands reached up to finger the gold uncertainly. “Dís if you did something foolish to buy yourself gold enough to make me a bauble, I’ll punch you so hard you’ll be smelling out the back of your head.”

“Don’t be daft,” she scoffed, wiping at her cheek where Hervor’s kisses had gotten too wet for her taste. “One of your admirers dropped it off - I expect you’ll know of whom I speak.”

“Glóin?” Hervor asked incredulously. “Why would he? I gave it over as payment for his brother.”

“His brother’s seeking payment of Missus Irpa direct, you mad cow,” Dís informed her affectionately. “Maybe save some of your kisses for him, eh?”

“I’ve kisses enough for everyone, don’t you worry on that account,” Hervor said brightly, bending down and laying another smacking kiss upon Dís’s nose. “And he brought it to you...for...well...that’s...very nice.”

“Aye, I thought so,” Dís replied smugly. “Very nice indeed for a friend, I suppose, but seeing as how he’s besotted of you, I didn’t expect anything less.”

“He’s awfully handsome,” Hervor replied dreamily, thinking of Glóin’s broad brow, wide shoulders and fine nose - and finer beard.

“Your children will be redheaded menaces all,” Dís predicted. “I hope they’re not halfwits, but that wouldn’t matter, they’ll get by on their good looks.”

“They surely would,” Hervor sighed happily, rising off her friend at last and doubling back to the stream. “Let’s have another - oh!”

What Hervor said after her exclamation of‘Oh!’ was a word unsuitable for recording, but it was appropriate for she bent her head so low to try and make out the words on the circlet that it fell right off her head and disappeared into the stream.

Dís echoed her sentiment, throwing her tunic off and ripping her boots from her feet without thinking twice about it. Hervor followed the younger girl’s example and in an instant the two of them were up to their necks in freezing cold river water, diving down into its depths, finger searching endlessly through slimy rocks and thick mud for anything that felt like carved metal.

“I’m sorry!” Hervor shrieked every time they came up for air.

“Don’t be sorry!” Dís bellowed back, shaking her wet hair out of her face. “Not ‘til we’re sure it’s lost for good!”

Yet that did seem to be the fate of the lovely circlet. The splashing grew louder as the girls were forced to come up for air more and more frequently since they were taking more shallow gulps of air as they panicked. Their searching hands found rocks and weeds and salamanders, but nothing of gold. By the time Dís accepted that the thing was lost for good, they had left behind their place by the clearing and swum half a mile downstream and back in search of it. They had been in the water so long the sky was black and their limbs were shaking with cold, their lips on the verge of turning blue.

The girls climbed out of the icy water and shivered their way back to their clothes, drying off on their tunics and stamping their numb feet back into their boots. Hervor sniffled every few seconds and it took Dís a minute to realize that her friend was crying.

“It’s alright,” she managed through chattering teeth, pulling Hervor close for an embrace.

“It’s _not_ ,” she sobbed against Dís’s shoulder. “All your hard work and it’s near the last thing I have of my amad’s and... _oh_ I just ruin - ”

“Hush your mouth,” the younger lass said, kissing her friend’s dripping hair. “You don’t ruin anything it’s just...it was an accident, eh? Things happen.”

Hervor pulled away, scrubbing her face with both hands in a furious effort to stop crying. “It’s all an accident! Everything’s an accident, our whole lives! Dragons and wandering and settling and...what were we _thinking?_ That we’d do a sword dance and things would be better? It’s all a botch, Dís! Time’s long past when we should have accepted it. Everything’s been a botch. And there’s nothing we can do to fix it or make it right.”

The chill that passed through Dís’s bones and settled heavy in her belly had nothing to do with the water or the night air. “You’re giving it up?” she asked, looking at Hervor with crushed disbelief in her eyes. “You’re not - you said you’d be my dancing partner! You can’t just quit!”

“I can and I do,” Hervor said, but there was no fire in her voice, only deep sadness. “You’re of age this year and you should know. Growing up’s not all sword dances and feasts. It’s being able to tell real from make-believe. This idea of ours was all well and good for dwarflings, but what’ll it be, really? A few minutes of pretending all’s as it should be when we know full well it’s not.”

The wind picked up and Hervor shivered. “I’m heading home,” she said when Dís did not reply with anything other than crestfallen silence. “I...I’ll see you tomorrow eve, I expect.”

Dís remained standing alone for a long time, so long she was sure if she remained any longer she would freeze through, just like Roan’s beloved. But she was no figure of legend, just a chilled dwarrow lass who felt one of her last flames of hope get snuffed out.

Home, she thought eventually. She had to go home. Thorin would worry.

All he did was worry. About her, their people, himself. Himself last, of course. Dís wanted him to know, she wanted him to see that finally he didn’t have to worry about her anymore. She was grown at last, she could take care of herself and maybe if he understood that the lines of worry on his brow would ease. Perhaps he would even smile.

There would be no smiles from him tonight when he saw her in such a state. No, he would be all concern thinking his sister was utterly out of her mind, having a swim when winter was practically breathing down their necks. Just a stupid little dwarfling with more beard than sense who shouldn’t make a move without her big brother dogging her steps.

As Dís plodded home, skirting around the edges of the village, she saw that there was a light burning from the forge, which surprised her enough that she stopped walking. Was Thorin trying to get work done, even though he had been up since the crack of dawn in trade talks? It would be just like him and she had half a mind to march over there and drag him off by his hair for supper when she was startled by a familiar voice calling her name in the street.

“Hey!” Víli jogged up to her, handsome and smiling and one of the very _last_ individuals Dís wanted to see. “What luck! I was on the way to your place t’see if you was up for a spot of craic ‘fore the festival - I seen Hervor pass the pub on the way home and...huh.” Wide brown eyes took in the waterlogging tunic hanging off her to her still damp hair. “Get caught in a storm?”

“No,” Dís said curtly, face flushing in shame. She turned on her heel and walked off. Víli was either feeling very determined or very dim that night for he followed her, walking quickly to match her long strides.

“Well, that’s a relief,” he remarked. “Wouldn’t do to have freakish weather cropping up so close to Durin’s Day. Won’t hardly be able to see the moon rise if there’s clouds in the sky. Got to say, I’m looking forward to that dance o’yours, you got me on tenterhooks and all. And, just as a matter of interest, if you got the time and inclination, I was wondering - ”

“There won’t be any dance,” Dís managed to get out, feeling a lump rise in her throat and she swallowed compulsively to keep from giving over to tears. “So shut up about it and leave me be.”

Dim, she decided. Víli was feeling decidedly dim. “Ah,” he said, scratching the back of his head and looking up at her sympathetically with his honest brown eyes. “Sore sorry to hear it. Didn’t get enough practice in? Must be some dance - ”

“You don’t know a thing about it!” Dís did not even try to keep her voice down as the tears she had been fighting spilled over at last. “None of it, you don’t understand a damned thing!”

A long quiet stretched between them and she expected Víli to do as Hervor did, walk away, leave her to herself and her upset. Already Dís felt guilty for shouting at him. Víli did not know, truly had no idea, neither about the dance or why she was so miserable over it. It wasn’t fair for her to take him to task. She was about to say as much when Víli reached over and lay a gentle hand upon her arm.

“I s’pose that’s true,” he acknowledged, meeting her eyes and looking so kindly that it only made her cry harder. Heedless of the wet, he moved his arm until it was around her shoulder and walked down a quiet alleyway, away from her apartment. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

And so she did. Víli let her borrow his coat and they walked around the village as she told him about the sword dances of Erebor which she could hardly remember, how beautiful they were and how fierce. How her parents fell in love because of them. How few were performed on the road. How she thought she could make her brother proud if she brought that little piece of home to the Blue Mountains. How it had all gone wrong.

They walked and she talked until her voice was hoarse but her clothes and her eyes were dry. When she had no more words they walked more in silence until the moon was overhead and Dís found herself at her own front door.

“Thanks for the coat,” she said awkwardly, shrugging out of it and handing it back to Víli.

“Thanks for the talk,” he said sincerely, folding it over one arm. Dís had never seen him looking at her so seriously; she was almost concerned Bofur was right and Longbeard moroseness was catching. “Listen, lass...I don’t know much ‘bout sword dances - don’t know much ‘bout anything, really. But I got to say, I don’t think you should give up as yet, alright? Let Hervor stew a bit, sounds t’me like she’s just hurting, but she might come round at that.”

Dís opened her mouth to argue, but she was too tired and Víli kept right on talking. “And even if you don’t do it, s’not the end o’things. There’s going to be a next year, after all. And I don’t rightly know your brother’s mind, but I’m sure he’ll be proud no matter what you do. Who wouldn’t be proud to know such a dwarf as yourself?”

If she had been in a better mood she might have smiled. As it was she drew Víli in for an embrace which he returned with warm, strong arms. “Flatterer,” she muttered into his neck.

“Nah, not me,” he replied softly, giving her a squeeze. “I just calls it like I sees it.” Pulling away, he smiled at her and tilted her head up giving her a kiss on the cheek. “‘Night lass. Keep your head up, eh?”

“‘Night,” she replied. Before she went in, she called, “Víli?”

He turned and looked at her with a warm, kindly expression that a corner of her mouth turned up at last. If hope had a face, Dís decided, it would look just like Víli. “I’ve said it before, but you’re pure gold.”

Víli grinned and bowed slightly, “And you’re a diamond, lass. See you at the festival?”

“See you at the festival,” she confirmed softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, what's that? MORE fake!mythology from yours truly? Why yes, yes it is! I would say I'm sorry to word-vomit two pages of the dwarven equivalent of Beren and Lúthien, but I'm not that sorry ;-)


	17. Chapter 17

Despite her talk with Víli the night before, Dís was in such low spirits the next day at work that even Thorin was going out of his way to be jovial that she might smile. She tried to humor her brother, but her heart wasn’t really in it and he could tell, she knew. The only small consolation was the fact that she kept her plans with Hervor a secret from her brother. Some cynical part of her heart suspected that it would never work out and now she was spared his disappointment in her for being overly ambitious.

The knowledge that she’d planned ahead for such an eventuality did not fill her with satisfaction. To be jaded before she was even eighty was not a fate she aspired to, nor, she was sure, had Thorin.

Like most of the artisans in the Ered Luin, they only worked a half-day. Most dwarves closed their shops early because everyone else was home preparing for the festival. Young lads and lassies looking to court (or, more likely, just a bit of fun outside the light of the bonfires) would sometimes spend hours oiling their hair and beards, twisting complicated plaits into their hair and adorning themselves with their finest jewels to attract a wandering eye.

That night, high-born and low would mingle together, for they were all their Maker’s children and thus alike in His eyes, beneath the light of the moon. As the sun set, the bonfires would be lit and fed all night, the meats had been roasting on spits all day and half the village could not keep their minds on their work due to the mouth-watering aromas that drifted down the hillside. The savory meats competed with the smell of the sweet breads and tarts filled with nuts and dried fruits that would be consumed by the revelers. It was a night of feasting, dancing and song to welcome the new year.

It might have been a week later, for all the cheer displayed by the dwarves at the smithy. Seven days hence would come the Day of Remembrance for the dead when they would once again come together, high and low to don their veils, spread ash over their faces and mourn those lost.

“Have you forgotten the date?” Thorin asked Dís as he doused the fire. “Last week you could hardly wait for Durin’s Day and now you're all out of sorts.”

She was saved having to answer by Dwalin’s timely chuckle. “Oh, aye,” he nodded mockingly. “Because _you’re_ one to scold others for being in a foul temper.”

“I don’t know what you’re implying by that,” Thorin replied, folding his arms as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t you? Hmm. The words ‘grumpy bastard’ come to mind - ”

“Ah, of course, because _you’re_ a paragon of good humor every day of the week - ”

“I’ve been called a paragon once or twice, now you mention it - ”

“What’s that Men say? Summat about pots and kettles?”

“I was thinking of the one about, ‘If the shoe fits,’ and your shoes have got ‘grumpy bastard’ writ all over ‘em.”

Their merry war of words concluded the way they both hoped it would: with the sound of Dís’s laughter ringing out for the first time since sun-up.

Craving a few minutes’ solitude, Dís bade both Dwalin and Thorin leave her to finish locking the shop up for the day. Her brother complied, stating his intention to wash before the baths became overcrowded and one would get oneself filthier going in the water than staying out. Dwalin said he’d be along to join him presently, but there was just one matter he had to attend to first.

Dís was quite sure both had gone as she lowered the awning and locked it securely, shutting out most of the daylight. The air inside was just warm enough to be stifling, but she took a deep breath and shut her eyes, tasting ash on the back of her tongue. As a young dwarf who spent most of her life wandering, the place she felt most at home was the forge. They might bed down exposed in grassy fields, make camp amid snow-covered peaks or eat their dinner in plains where the grass was burned brown by the heat of the sun, but always there was a smithy.

Rented, abandoned, or hastily constructed there was the flame, the sound of the hammers and the smell of heated metal to fill her nostrils and remind her that no matter where they were, or how low they’d fallen or what dangers were about, her family was all around her. Imperfect, of course, beset by tragedy, burdened by grief, the threat of madness and the hundred petty injuries they paid one another daily, but _there_ nevertheless.

If she closed her eyes and breathed, she could pretend they were there still.

A sudden noise from the side door made her jump, eyes flying open. “Easy,” Dwalin said with a smile. “What, were you asleep on your feet? Can’t put on a good show if you’re nodding off.”

She bit her lip and looked down at the scuffed toes of her boots. _There won’t be a show,_ she wanted to say. _I’m sorry to disappoint you. Truly._ But the words stuck in her throat and she just stared downward until Dwalin’s boots entered her line of vision and she felt something heavy land on her head.

“Oh, good,” he said with a note of relief in his voice. “It fits.”

Incredulous blue eyes looked slowly up, from Dwalin’s belt buckle to the taut pull of his tunic over his barrel chest, to the strong line of his shoulders, his smiling mouth half hidden in his beard to his brown eyes, warm as the sun on a summer day. One hand rose as well, touching the metal, warmed by strong hands. A circlet. A carved circlet.

Without a word, Dís removed it from her head. It was silver and carved all over with runes, which she read with wide, wondering eyes.

_From deepest ocean to darkest cavern I go; for you I climb the highest mountain; with a song in my heart._

The tale of Roan and his Beloved of Stone. The second stave, wherein his Beloved set forth on her doomed quest.

“You made this for me?” Dís asked in a breathless whisper. “For _me_? But it must have taken - ”

She stopped speaking, but they both knew what she was not saying. Forming the circle was nothing, child’s play to a smith of Dwalin’s years and experience, but the _runes_ were something else entirely. It was not something that was made much of, but Dís knew, from seeing Dwalin tamp down his frustration when they received an order by post, watching him stand passively back as Thorin read road signs aloud and never once having seen him take up one of his brothers books, though he loved the stories contained therein, that he found reading and writing a trial.

From the few documents she’d ever seen him sign, she knew his handwriting was poor. Yet the runes in the circlet were perfectly straight and even, bold and starkly punched in. It must have taken days, she marveled - and then remembered the light in the forge, burning into the wee hours of the morning.

“Carving’s not so bad,” Dwalin said with a shrug. “You like it?”

Dís’s only answer was to fling herself at him, arms around his neck. He caught her and picked her right up off the floor, as though she was light as a feather and in that moment all her burdens fell away, dropping to the floor like ash from the fire.

With her face half hidden in Dwalin’s shoulder, she repeated over and over again, “I love it, thank you, thank you, I love it, I love it!” _I love you._

Dwalin just laughed and pressed a brotherly kiss to the side of her head. “You’d better,” he replied cheekily. “After I worked so long on it. Sorry it’s not gold, but - ”

“It’s better than gold,” she said, pulling away and looking at him seriously. “It’s the best present I’ve ever got. Ever.”

Dwalin looked pleased as punch and Dís kissed him right on the top of his head, where his hairline got a little further back with each passing year. Most considered such a thing to be shameful, but Dís didn’t mind. Just meant Dwalin had a bit more skin to buss than most. He put her back down on her feet and ruffled her hair affectionately.

“Tell Hervor to braid it in good and tight,” he advised, turning to stride out the door. “You don’t want it flying off in the middle and blinding some poor sod who stopped to watch. See you tonight, lass.”

“See you tonight,” she repeated faintly, suddenly remembering that there _was_ no dance, no Hervor, no reason at all to wear the precious, lovely thing she held in her hands. By the Maker, what was she to do? She could hardly call Dwalin back and tell him to melt it down, not after he went to all the trouble to make it for her and carve it for her.

_From deepest ocean to darkest cavern I go._

Roan’s Beloved braved tempests and ice for the love of one dwarf. Surely she could face her fears to honor the memory of an entire kingdom.

This was their legacy. And she was not going to throw it off because of a lost bit of jewelry and a bad case of nerves.

Pausing only to lock the door of the smithy behind her, Dís took to her heels and ran off in search of Hervor. She was not at the butcher’s, the door was locked and the shop abandoned by the time Dís got there. Neither were she and her father at home. To the baths Dís ran, feeling a growing stitch in her side, but not slowing her pace. Dwarves got out of her way on the streets, she nearly toppled an apple cart and the peddler, not knowing or caring who she was, lobbed one of his fruits at her, shouting that she ought to slow down before she did someone an injury. It only spurred her on faster.

The elite in Erebor had private baths, heated by servants, but Dís barely remembered such luxury. She’d spent most of her life washing off with shared hot water when she was very lucky and making do with the odd river or stream most of the time. When they settled in the Blue Mountains and discovered the tolerably clean public baths frequented by artisans, it seemed to her a special treat.

Carved into the rock, fed by nearby tributaries and heated so the caves were steamy and warm, the baths were beginning to fill up with the first swarm of bathers. Dwarves who hastily locked their shop doors and headed for the enclosed caverns early with a spring in their step, hoping to avoid the crowds. Dís spotted Hervor and her father after only a few moments of scanning the crowd. Neither would be any use at all on a hunting party, she mused; they both shared the same bright red hair that caught the torchlight marvelously.

“Good afternoon, Mister Vigg, I need to borrow your daughter, thank you!” Dís said all in a rush, linking an arm around one of Hervor’s and dragging her away before either of them could protest.

“I can walk, I can walk!” Hervor squawked, tripping over her boots as Dís pulled her into a semi-private corner. She huffed a little when Dís let go, making a show of straightening her tunic which her friend found patently absurd since she’d be shucking her clothes off in a minute. “There. Not everyone’s got legs half a mile long, you know.”

“Right,” Dís nodded impatiently. “Look, I’ve got to - ”

But Hervor was not done speaking and so spoke right over Dís’s words, “I want to apologize.”

“ - talk to you about - wait, what? Apologize?”

Hervor nodded, “Aye. I was a miserable wench last night to rail at you so. You’re a good lass, you didn’t deserve it. I was cross with myself, it wasn’t fair at all to screech at you like a harpy. I’m sorry.”

This was a week for apologies to be made endlessly, it seemed. Custom and good manners dictated that an apology sincerely given should always be immediately forgiven, and so Dís reached out and took Hervor’s hands. “I forgive you,” she replied seriously, then grinned at her and added, “Now, will you be my favorite girl again and give it a go tonight?”

Fixing Dís with a doubtful expression, she sighed and said, “I just don’t - here now, what’s that?” Dís had her present hanging from her wrist, like an over-large bracelet.

“Dwalin made it for me,” Dís said, handing it over for inspection. Hervor whistled, impressed, turning the ornament over in her hands, mouthing the words as she read them. “I won’t wear it though, not if you haven’t got one. Come along now, what d’you say? Be brave, like Roan’s beloved!”

“Ha!” Hervor let out a bark of a laugh, but she kept her eyes on the carvings. “Begging your pardon, m'dear, but I don’t think _either_ of us are as quality as Roan’s beloved.”

“We can hold our own,” Dís said dismissively. “And if we botch it, I’ll bet you a gold piece everyone’ll be so drunk the next morning that they won’t remember a thing of it.”

“Keep your gold; we’ll be needing it to buy drinks after to help ‘em forget,” Hervor smiled at last, lopsided, but sincere. Taking a deep breath, she let it out and nodded resolutely. “Alright. Let’s get it over with. If things look bad, we’ll just run each other through and put an end to our suffering.”

“That’s the spirit!” Dís crowed, embracing Hervor tightly and lifting her right off her feet, spinning her around and nearly knocking a dwarfling over in the process. When she righted her friend went went to help the lad up, but stopped, eyes wide when she saw that it wasn’t a little child at all, but young Nori, bent double and panting.

“Was looking...” he wheezed, “...all over...for you...here!”

He thrust something between the two girls, something round and golden and thought lost forever. “Young Nori, you’re a gem!” Hervor crowed, scooping him up in her arms and squeezing him tight, kissing him over and over on the face. “A ruby! How _ever_ did you - ”

“Gerroff, Hervor!” he complained, throwing his head back and flinching. “Can’t breathe!”

Hervor set him down on his feet, remembering that he had very recently been injured, but Nori looked almost entirely healed up, save for some scabbed over cuts on his face and a few yellow bruises that spotted his neck. “How did you find it?” she demanded once he’d caught his breath.

“I was looking for you last night, by the river, but I got there late,” he explained, folding his arms over his chest and scowling. “It was full dark already, I had an awful time getting away from Dori, he’s uncanny. Eyes in the back of his head, I’d wager, but anyway, you were long gone. I wasn’t in a mind to hurry home, so I went for a bit of a walk and saw that thing caught up in weeds along the bank.”

“But how’d you know it was mine?” she pressed, looking him up and down critically. “You’re a tricky wee goblin, but if brains were flint you’d not have enough to strike a spark.”

In spite of the insult Nori grinned wolfishly at them, all cocky good humor once more. “I was going to sell it, see if I could make some coin, it being so finely done, but then I got back to the house just as Víli did. Made the mistake of showing it off to him, since I picked it up natural as you please, nothing unseemly about it, I thought he’d be...well, never mind what I thought. Anyway, he said the thing belonged to you girls and I wasn’t about sell it then, was I?”

“Nori, you’re a dragon-tongued liar, a sneak, and a scoundrel,” Dís declared, ruffling his hair affectionately. “But you’ve a gilt heart beneath it all and I hereby forgive every trouble you’ve ever caused me!”

“Well, I couldn’t have you girls dancing looking like a pair of ugly old hags, how’d that reflect on me?” Nori’s smile broadened and he punched Dís on the arm, “That forgiveness count as insurance against future troubles?”

Punching him back and smiling as he tried not to flinch she replied teasingly, “Don’t push your luck, nadadith.”

“As touching as this scene is,” Hervor cut in delicately, stepping between the two with a hand on the small of their backs, “and, to be sure, it brings a tear to the eye - it’s Durin’s Day Eve, if you’ve forgotten! We’ve only a few hours ‘til sunset!”

“It’ll hardly take hours to bathe and put our hair up,” Dís pointed out.

“Aye,” the other lass nodded, “but I want a good stiff drink before we embarrass ourselves in front of the entire village.” She gave them each a hard smack on the bottom, as though they were slow-moving ponies. “Stop dawdling and let’s get a move on!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! Dun-na-na-na! Dun-na-na-na-NA! Dun-na-na-na! Dun-na-ahem. Anyway. The festivities commence in the next chapter!


	18. Chapter 18

An hour before sundown, the last of the Men who resided in the Ered Luin made their way through the gates that surrounded the center of the mountain village. As happened every year, some grumbled about the half-day and the fact that a full market day would be wasted on the morrow, but most simply smiled down at the guardsman and waved to those dwarrows with whom they were acquainted professionally and socially.

“Have a good festival!” they called cheerfully. Those who fancied themselves in the know added, “Happy New Year!”

The guardsmen thanked them as they waved the stragglers through the gates which were promptly closed and sealed behind them. The Mannish part of town was cut off from the interior of the mountain on Durin’s Day Eve and not even the boldest of that race were foolhardy enough to attempt to infiltrate the spectacle. They saw the bonfires upon the hill, heard the shouts and the drumming well into the wee hours of the morning and that was enough to sate their curiosity.

It was rumored that if a Man was discovered within the gates during the festivities, they would be drawn and quartered, pulled to death behind wild stallions, tossed on the pyres, tortured then killed, bleeding sluggishly from a thousand wounds. These were, of course, only rumors. In all the years that Men and Dwarves cohabitated in the mountains, none had ever tried gaining entry.

Peddlers, tinkerers and toymakers set up their stalls and even before the sun set, dwarflings were dragging their parents around by the hands, eyes bulging out of their heads at all of the sights and smells that surrounded them. The aroma of sweet breads, fig tarts, poppyseed cakes and boar, venison and pork roasting upon massive spits set mouths to watering. Bookmakers were already taking down bets for the horse races.

Stars began to wink overhead as the smoke from the bonfires began curling toward the heavens sending sparks up into the twilight. Torches illuminated the streets as bright as sunlight and the entire population of the mountain, from grandmothers leaning on walking sticks to newborns wrapped snug against their parents’ chests left their homes and hurried outside as soon as they were dressed for the night. In the Blue Mountains it was customary for the Durin’s Day celebration to take place entirely out of doors; all the better to watch the moon rise.

Lords and Ladies were distinguished only from the poorest of the poor by quality of the fabric that made up their clothes. This was not a night to encrust oneself in jewels; the Maker created the Seven Fathers and Six Mothers from the same stone and this was not a night to cling tight to rank. Even the city guard did not seem overly concerned with keeping the order, it was not uncommon to find one (or two, or three at a time) neglecting his post in favor of buying a bauble for a niece or nephew, perhaps loading his arms with sweets and cakes to bring back to his fellows to nibble on until their watch was done and they could join the fun. No one expected trouble on Durin’s Day Eve.

“Seems I was worried about nothing,” Thorn remarked to Dwalin and Balin as they made their way down the high street, ignoring the calls of peddlers selling their wares.

Dwalin made quite a show of being shocked, “You? Worried over nothing? I won’t believe it.”

Smacking him on the arm, Thorin remarked, “See if I buy you anything at the bake shop again. You saw how downtrodden Dís was today and where is she now? Run off with Hervor and the Maker knows when we’ll come across her.”

“Might be sooner than you think,” Dwalin replied mysteriously. Thorin gave him a sideways glance, curiosity written all over his face, but Dwalin simply smiled at him in an irritating way that implied he knew something Thorin didn’t. He was about to inquire what that something was when he heard the sound of shouting in the distance.

“ _There_ they are!” Óin bellowed, gesturing to someone behind him to hurry along. “Like finding a lump of coal in a windowless cavern! Can you believe this crowd? Next year I’m staying in.”

Every year Óin complained about the crowds, the crush of people, the fact that if someone was injured taking a fall or getting in a drunken brawl he would _not_ be ministering to them - but his whole family knew he kept a needle and thread and a roll of bandages on his person just in case. Behind him his father was rolling his eyes and his mother smiled indulgently, patting his shoulder in a soothing manner.

Glóin elbowed his way past his mother and brother, but came up short and eyed his cousins with disappointment. “She’s not with you, then?” he asked. “Hervor, I mean? I thought she’d come with Dís - ow!”

His father came up behind him and cuffed him sharply on the back of the head. “I don’t care how fond you are of some lass, you don’t knock your mother to the ground to inquire after her,” Gróin stated crossly.

“Knocked me to the ground, did he?” Maeva asked mildly. “Hmm. You’ve an awfully lowly opinion of my hardiness.” Gróin blanched, but his wife did not otherwise take him to task, she merely smiled broadly at her nephews and opened her arms, saying, “Sweet New Year, dears!” 

They greeted one another warmly, embracing and knocking their heads together with all the sincere feeling one reserved for family. Still a little miffed at her husband’s unintended slight, Maeva took Thorin’s arm and asked, “Where _is_ your sister? I’ve not seen hide nor hair of her since she woke me up three nights past shouting at Irpa’s boy.”

“She’ll be along,” Dwalin said and smirked at young Glóin. “Hervor in tow, no doubt. You’ll get a crick in your neck, you keep tilting your chin up like that.”

Glóin scowled up at his cousin and ducked his head, doing a very bad job of pretending he hadn’t been scanning the crowd for a flash of garnet-bright hair. “Not all of us are tall as a watchtower, are we?” he grumbled, pitching an elbow into Dwalin’s side. “Just want to get the lay of the place. It’s as Óin said, the crowds are ridiculous, getting moreso every year.”

“You’re too young to talk like that,” Balin remarked, prompting Gróin to laugh and reach out to ruffle his hair.

“And _you’re_ too young to scold him for being too young.”

“Ah, of course, I ought to leave the scolding to you, then,” Balin smiled at him, running a hand through his hair to smooth it into some semblance of order.

“ _I_ wouldn’t mind running into Miss Hervor, now that I think of it,” Maeva remarked as she and Thorin paused mid-step to avoid tripping over two children who were running past, mouths full of sweets, trailing colorful ribbons behind them. “I’d like a grandchild or two to spoil.”

Glóin flushed a deep scarlet and his relations chortled at his groan of, “ _Amad_ ,” but she was undeterred.

“Ah, look!” she cried with evident delight. “There’s her father now! We can settle the marriage contract this evening, if you’d like. Vigg!”

“Ama!” Glóin shouted, mortified, but it was too late, the damage was done and Vigg joined them, looking annoyed.

“‘Evening,” he grunted. “Any of you seen my daughter? She said she was with Dís, but I wouldn’t put it past her to lie, the wild thing. She’s been running me a pretty dance these last few weeks.”

“I haven’t see her,” Thorin replied with a shrug. “But that doesn’t mean she isn’t with my sister - I haven’t seen _her_ either.”

“I told you he wasn’t here!” A new voice piped up from behind them, Dori, looking vexed and impatient. His arms were folded and he was rolling his eyes as his mother walked forward to greet them all. Maeva let go of Thorin’s arm to embrace Irpa, kissing her heartily on the cheek.

“I wasn’t looking for your brother,” Irpa said over her shoulder to Dori. “I was looking for pleasant company to pass the evening with, I’m sure he’s fine.”

Thorin favored Dori with a small smirk, “Haven’t found a leash for him, yet?”

Dori rolled his eyes again and sighed. “Not one with a short enough lead to satisfy me,” he replied testily.

Beside his brother, Dwalin coughed into his hand, hiding a sudden smile. “They roped young Nori into it,” he muttered, sounding thoroughly amused even as his elder brother frowned up at him.

“You know something I don’t?” he asked, and the reversal of the question - for always, _always_ it was Balin harboring secret knowledge, never Dwalin - made his brother laugh.

“Could be,” he grinned in such a self-satisfied way that Baling might have taken a swipe at him, had he not managed to dart to the front of their little group with more swiftness than one would expect to find in so bulky a creature.

“Where are we going?” Thorin asked, amused at Dwalin’s sudden desire to take the lead. “If you’re looking for mead, I saw Bildr and his kegs nearer the race track - stacked ten-foot high, at least.”

Dwalin just flashed that knowing grin at Thorin who seemed to not find it nearly as smug as Balin did. “I thought I’d take a look at the dancing, while I’m still sober enough to appreciate it.”

“What an _excellent_ idea!” Irpa exclaimed, sounding so delighted that others in the group looked at her with raised eyes. She paid them no mind, only side-stepped away from Maeva to stand beside Dwalin. “I’ve never heard such a good idea in all my life! Oh, you _are_ clever.”

Thorin exchanged an incredulous look with Balin and seemed not to share Irpa’s opinion in the slightest. “Really?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at his oldest and dearest friend. “I’d sooner have a few mugs of ale in me before I watched that spectacle.” Satisfied that no one in hearing distance would take offence at his words, he added, “It’s a bore.”

The smile on Dwalin’s face was downright cheeky as he drew an arm around Thorin’s shoulder and frogmarched him to the area set aside for sword dances. “Give it a chance,” he said easily, eyes sparkling with so much good cheer that Thorin found himself wondering whether Dwalin had been hitting Bildr’s stores of mead without him. “They might surprise you.”

As they neared the arena, only half full this early in the evening, Thorin found his low expectations were met. Sword dancing in the Blue Mountains involved young dwarves, male and female alike, bared to the waist, primly marking out steps around old, rusted weapons whose glory days were long behind them. They moved in tandem, unerringly, never missing a beat. A pretty sight perhaps, but nothing like Erebor.

Dori leaned upon a fence, resting his chin upon his hand, fingers idly tapping a beat against the post. “Ah, there’s the moon,” he noted approvingly. The round silver orb was rising steadily overhead as the last of the sun’s rays withdrew from the earth. The torches around the area blazed hot and he removed a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his coat to dab at his forehead. “I’m moving further off, it’s hot as blazes.”

“It isn’t so bad,” Irpa said, catching his arm and forcing him to stand by her. As it happened, she was quite cozily boxed in by the fence, her eldest son on one side and Óin warming the other. She shifted her weight until she was flush against the healer’s side. “Quite comfortable, I’d say.”

“I’m getting a drink,” Thorin announced, ducking out from under Dwalin’s arm. “Who wants - ”

“You can’t,” Dwalin said bluntly and some of his smugness drained away. Thorin just looked confused.

“Can’t I?” he asked, genuinely perplexed. “What’s the matter with you? You’re acting queer as that sister of mine.” Frowning he folded his arms and regarded Dwalin frankly, “Is there summat afoot I should know of?”

Before Dwalin could answer, their attention was diverted by Dori who straightened up and squinted at the arena incredulously.

“Durin’s beard!” he swore, shouting over the murmur of the crowed. The latest group of dancers cleared away, taking their swords with them and the drummers had gone silent. In their place, hefting a single drum over his back, bruises all but gone in the firelight, was Nori. “Come out of there at once! You have ‘til the count of three or I’ll come after you myself! One! Two! Thr-mmphh!”

Irpa very gently, but very firmly, placed a hand over her eldest son’s mouth. “That’s better,” she smiled even as Dori looked at her with wide eyes.

“MMMHHHMMM!”

“Now, darling, he’s perfectly alright.”

“GGGHNNHHHF!”

“I know, but it’s not what you think, let him be.”

“FOUND ‘EM!” A unmistakable voice with a Broadbeam lilt rang out clear as a bell. “Over here! Shake a leg, you two!”

Bofur was coming toward them, head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd, his hat in his hand waving overhead like a banner. He was perched on Víli’s shoulders and the bounced a bit as his mount jogged closer to them. Bifur followed at a more sedate pace and eyed his cousins with a bemused expression. Bombur brought up the rear, but seemed distracted, constantly glancing over his shoulder and swirling his head to and fro in a manner very reminiscent of Glóin keeping an eye out for Hervor until Dwalin teased him about it.

“I didn’t think you’d miss it, but I wanted t’be sure,” Víli explained as Bofur slid down his back. The dark-haired dwarf did not stand of his own accord but only moved down enough that he was not blocking the view from behind, Víli bore him upon his back and adjusted his hold so Bofur could view the arena over his shoulder. “Exciting stuff, eh? Or I should hope it is, they built it up so! If your Erebor sword dancing’s not grand as the day is long, I’ll be put out.”

Thorin looked from Víli to Dwalin, the former grinning broadly at him and the latter smiling guilelessly. “ _Erebor_ sword dancing,” he asked slowly, disbelief all over his face. “Do you mean to tell me - ”

“Aha!” Thyra nearly bowled him over, skidding to a stop just behind Thorin, having run to meet them. “Am I late? Da wanted me minding the stall, but I told him I couldn’t possibly, not when there was such happenings to see!”

“Right on time,” Bombur reassured her, no longer jerking his head this way and that like a startled owl. He smiled and she smiled and the two of them just _smiled_ at one another and would have missed the dancing entirely had Bofur not swatted at the pair of them with his hat and gestured toward the arena where the two dancers took their place across the sandy pit from one another as the last of the sun’s light disappeared behind the craggy peaks of the Blue Mountains.

Dís thick black hair was bound back away from her face, intricately braided around a heavy silver circlet that rested upon her brow like a crown. Gone was the exiled princes, the beggar girl in her brother’s cast-offs. That strong form and noble mien belonged not to any common smith, but a queen. That was the very face of royalty with her sharp blue eyes and neatly braided beard, if her friends and family did not know who they sought, they might not have recognized her.

There, across from her in the ring, were the glossy red curls that Glóin strained his neck to glimpse. The light from the fire made them gleam brighter, as though a thousand small flames were caught in her hair. The golden circlet braided tight in that lovely wild nest glistened and gleamed and Vigg let out noise that might have been a shout of protest or approval.

Gróin, taking in the fellow’s open mouth and narrow eyes sought to tilt the scale favorably toward approval. “Lovely girl you’ve got there,” he observed, giving Vigg’s arm a quick pat.

With a slow nod, he closed his mouth and blinked, eyes a little wet. “Aye,” he said shortly. “So I have.”

Thorin did not say a word and no one spoke to him. The eyes of the whole assembly were fixed unblinkingly upon the girls, beautiful in the moonlight and fierce.

Like their Broadbeam counterparts, the girls were attired in their trousers, held up with thick belts and boots, but nothing else. This dance was meant to be a show of their prowess as fighters and no armor was permitted. Their broad chests, thick arms and muscled backs were decorated only with the tattoos they bore as indicators of their trade, their history and their family line. Both girls’ arms were marked around with thick red and black braided bands for brothers slain in battle and mothers who were not, whose memorial markings were inked all in black.

Dís was more heavily inked than Hervor and the crossed axes upon her back twitched slightly as her muscles moved beneath her skin. She had an axe in hand and a sword sheathed at her side. Hervor too boasted a sword hanging from her belt, but in her hands was a flail, tipped with spikes on the end of a long, strong chain.

Young women of old usually walked away from such bouts with several bleeding wounds and proudly wore their dancing scars for the rest of their lives. Rarely, there were deaths.

The drumming started up, Nori beating a slow tattoo, building to a more rapid pace as the girls circled one another, like a lion with a mane of flame and a wolf, black of pelt. In tandem they spoke the words that thousands of their ancestors had given voice to for hundreds of years in Erebor’s vaulted halls.

“ **For family. For halls. For honor.** ”

The steady drumbeat ceased. Both girls drew breath. And then the rhythm picked up, as fast as a beating heart. And the dance was begun.

They charged one another with a low cry tearing from their throats. The chain of Hervor’s flail wrapped around the handle of Dís’s axe and the taller girl flung her friend into the dirt. With a cunning twist of her hand, Hervor had Dís on her back, losing her weapon from where it was tangled with the axe. Swift and smooth as rushing water they rose again, circling one another, feet kicking up a small cloud of dust in the sand. Now the motions of their bodies were precise, almost delicate - until Dis lunged forward and nearly sliced Hervor in two. She only avoided the slice of the gleaming blade by twisting backward in a move that had Thyra gasping and Glóin covering his mouth with his hand.

A crowd, sizeable now, had gathered and all those refuges of the Lonely Mountain who followed Thorin Oakenshield to the West pushed their way to the front, their hearts in the throats. Even those not old enough to remember all the shining beauty of Erebor felt moved by the sight before them. As long as the drum beat on, in this new city beneath an open sky, under the same moon that shone bright each year on Durin’s Day, they were home.

Stomps and whoops and clapping joined Nori’s relentless pounding on his drum as one by one the dwarves were as caught up in the dance as its participants. The fighting became more vicious with the encouragement, more visceral. Dís was thrown onto her back and Hervor jumped on top of her, but she threw her off and blocked her with the long handle of her battleaxe, one of the points of the flail digging deep into her shoulder and ripping a deep gash in the flesh.

She hardly seemed to notice, it did not slow her in the slightest as she flew to her feet, readying herself for an attack. With a snarl, Hervor once again whipped the flail forward, the chain tangling with the axehead. One strong motion of her arm ripped the weapon from Dís’s hands but the momentum carried her own weapon out of her hands and sent it flying toward the outskirts of the ring. Víli jumped back, nearly dropping Bofur as he did so.

“Watch it!” he shouted, his words just part of the roar of the crowd. “I’m only spectating!”

But the spectators were part of the dance now, all caught up in the rhythm, screaming their encouragement, shouting battle cries, more than one face was wet with tears of joy. _Here_ was their legacy. After all they had suffered, the pain, the loss, the hopelessness, here were their traditions, whole and preserved, a world away from their homeland. Not forgotten. Enlivened by these daughters of Durin.

The swords were out now and the steel flashed and clashed, scraping and singing as loud and true as any instrument could. The girls weaved and darted, graceful and terrible all at once. Dís landed a glancing blow to Hervor’s side that, though shallow, bled fast staining her creamy white skin red. When Hervor got her opponent’s legs out from under her, Dís hit the side of her head hard against the ground. Parrying the blow, she spit a mouthful of blood in Hervor’s face, temporarily blinding her enough that she could scramble to her feet and place her in a headlock, sword held high to deliver a fatal blow until Hervor reared back and struck her hard against the forehead with the edge of her circlet, then flipped Dís over, onto the ground. She scrambled to her feet and the two of them circled one another, Hervor’s face stained crimson and Dís’s mouth dripping scarlet drops into the sand.

Thyra was gripping Bombur’s arm so hard he would wake with bruises the next morning. “By the Maker, by the _Maker_ ,” she kept muttering under her breath. She’d been expecting something more exciting than the usual sword dances, but nothing in the girl’s coy half-hints about their practices could have prepared her for this.

The drumming was reaching a fever pitch and the crowd along with it. The girls’ movements had a hint of savagery to them, each landed blows, an elbow to the face, a cut upon an arm thrown up in lieu of a shield. They were battered and sweating, chests heaving as they drew breath faster and faster. The swords were knocked from their aching arms - and the crowd gasped. Which of them would turn away from the other first? Which would take up her weapon? What would she do with it when she had it, against an unarmed opponent? _Who would turn away first?_

To the crowd’s simultaneous delight and disbelief, neither girl turned away. Instead, they ran at each other, _leapt_ at each other and in a move almost too quick for the eye to see, drew forth identical daggers from their boots. Hervor fell onto her back in the dirt, Dís pinned her down and as the dust cleared and the crowd roared, they saw each girl unmoving, one hand around the other’s wrist, those glinting daggers poised against one another’s throats.

The drumming stopped. There was silence in the arena, broken only by Dís and Hervor’s heavy breathing. Then the daggers fell from their hands. They parted. Rose. Bowed to each other.

The cheers that followed the dance echoed in the mountains for miles around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one note: The sword dance was written to "The Drumming Song" by Florence and the Machine.


	19. Chapter 19

In sharp contrast to the violence of a moment before, Hervor threw her arms around Dís’s neck and the taller girl lifted her bodily off her feet. Hervor’s legs went round her waist and they clung to each other, Dís grinning broadly as Hervor covered her face in kisses, getting her bloodied teeth more often than not, but neither of them cared.

It wasn’t quite the proper ending, they were meant to walk off separately, with dignity, but they were too giddy with accomplishment. Over Dís’s shoulder, Hervor saw Nori grinning and looking very pleased with himself. She beckoned him over and he needed very little encouragement. Looking more his age than he had in years, Nori launched himself at him and all three went tumbling into the sand, laughing as hard as they ever had. All around them, the crowd still cheered and whistled into the night air.

It wasn’t long before the barriers erected around the arena were breached, chaos ensuing as their kith and kin scrambled to meet them.

Óin reached them first, through sheer determination. The Healer pushed his way through the crowd and gave both girls a shove out of the area shouting, “Clear the way! Clear the way, I’ve got two cabbageheaded _fools_ that need looking after!”

The girls were still laughing; if Óin was truly vexed with them, his language would have been saltier.

“Get up, get up!” he said, hooking his hands very firmly around the girls’ upper arms and hauling them to their feet. “I’ll not be picking every grain of sand out of those wounds, you mark me! Why on earth didn’t you lassies think to _forewarn_ me about all this?”

Nori picked up their weapons and trotted along behind them whistling cheerfully as a grin split his face from ear to ear; it was a rare moment when he could listen to other people getting scolded and he intended to relish it.

Until he felt a pair of strong arms pick him up, swords and all and lock him in a vice-like embrace.

“That was incredible!” he heard and his eyes bugged out of his head when he recognized _Dori’s_ voice. But how could it be? It lacked the grating not of a whinge, there was no accompanying sigh, no wagging finger! Yet it was Dori nonetheless who swept him right off his feet and blathered on and on about how he ought to have been _told_ , he could have sewn Nori a nice new coat and the girls wouldn’t have gone on with trousers so worn that he could practically see their knees.

Ah, right, complaining, talking about things Nori _ought_ to have done, that was more familiar and the younger of Irpa’s sons relaxed until his elder brother said something so strange, so foreign to Nori’s ears that it took a minute for the words to register.

“Oh, but never mind that now,” Dori said, setting Nori on his feet and briefly bringing his head to rest against his younger brother’s. “You did well - all of you. I’ve never been so proud.”

For the record, Nori did _not_ cry when he stopped, listened and truly _heard_ his brother’s compliment. He was not a sentimentalist. He merely had a bit of sand in his eye that needed to be brushed away.

Anyway, he did not have time for sentiment, not when Bofur leapt on him and he was crushed between the dark-haired dwarf and his blonde counterpart.

“Young Nori!”

“That was - ”

“The _most_ \- ”

“Fantastical!”

“Magical!”

“Rhythmical!”

“Drumming - “

“We’ve ever seen!” they concluded together. Víli and Bofur did not look very much alike in many ways, but their smiles and the sound of their laughter were identical. As they echoed Dori’s approval, Nori found himself grinning right back at them, attempting a little of his usual bravado.

“Eh, it was alright,” he shrugged and the miners howled, slapping him heartily on the back, ruffling his hair and hooking their arms around his shoulders as they followed Óin to the bench where he ordered the girls to sit down and shouted over and over at the Erebor-born who clamored for their attention that if they did not leave the young ladies _be_ that he might minister to them, they’d never get their chance to congratulate them when the lasses died of _blood rot_.

“Won’t be a minute!” his mother chimed up, all smiles, a direct contrast to her son’s surly demeanor. “Just need to patch these two up - that’s the way of it after a fine dance,” she added to Dís and Hervor, eyes sparkling. “And _such_ a dance it was! You did your foremothers great honor, my dears!”

“I haven’t seen a dance so bloody since my sister stepped out onto the sand,” Gróin said, nodding in a satisfied manner as both Dís and Hervor’s faces adopted an expression of shocked delight. There was no figure more legendary born in Erebor in the last five centuries than Queen Sigdís, Huntress and Dragonslayer; to be compared to her was no small compliment.

Gróin, like his elder son, was a dwarf who became all business very quickly in the practice of his trade and his bellowing was even louder and angrier. “Who do I have to kill to get some boiling water?” he shouted and half a dozen onlookers scrambled to make themselves useful. “Or honey, at least, ought to be plenty of that about! I want it _jarred_ , mind, don’t go scraping it off a tart and claiming it’s straight out of the comb!”

“A few stitches a piece, I think,” Maeva nodded to herself. Unlike her son and husband, she would rather save her breath and practice her healing. “But a little something for the pain wouldn’t go amiss - ah, thank you, dear.”

Glóin appeared with two glasses of whiskey, a little winded for he’d run as soon as the dancing was done to procure them. “Hadn’t any essence of poppy,” he apologized, but Óin was removing a flask from his pockets and carefully depositing its contents into the glasses with a steady hand. Glóin was staring at Hervor with the silliest smile on his face; he looked half drugged himself.

“That was...” he began, but stopped and tried to take a different tactic. “You were...” but then it seemed rude to speak only to Hervor without at least complimenting his cousin, but he couldn’t remember a thing Dís had done during the dance - except for that tricky move when she nearly had Hervor’s vitals out, what did she think this was, a sword dance or a vivisection?

Luckily, Hervor was tired of waiting for him to make up his mind about what to say, she assumed it was going to be something lovely. “Thank you!” she replied before she seized Glóin by his beard and kissed him full on the mouth. There was blood on his lips when his brother pulled him away, taking the whiskey and clucking his tongue.

“Now, now,” Óin said warningly to Hervor, handing her drink and shoving his brother away from her. “You save _that_ ‘til after you’ve had a drink - carry on like that now, folks might think you mean it!”

“Your children will be beautiful fools,” Dís predicted, knocking her mug against Hervor’s. “Here’s to it!”

Both girls drank deeply as Maeva and Óin looked them over, washing and binding superficial wounds, heating their needles to stitch up the more serious cuts. Gróin prepared the bindings for the larger wounds with a practiced hand. “That’s six stitches for you, my bonny lass,” Maeva told Hervor who hooted with all the unbridled pride of youth.

“Six!” her father cried, in alarm, it seemed, but the smile with which he greeted his daughter was all pride. “Your mother had...aye, I think it was six when she had her dance.”

“Did she?” Hervor asked, favoring her father with a small, hopeful smile.

Vigg traced his daughter’s face and nodded slowly, “She did. You’ve done...ah, I’m no wordsmith. But I couldn’t have asked for a better daughter if I’d requested you of the Maker Himself special.”

“It’s a good job you’re not a wordsmith,” Hervor said, lips pursing in a vain attempt to keep from crying. “Got me weepy as a leaky tap already, Ada.”

Vigg chuckled and kissed Hervor’s forehead. “Ah, well, that’s where you take after me,” he informed her seriously. “I was blubbing the whole time, Maeva will tell you true.”

“I’ll say no such thing,” the dwarrowdam replied airily. “It was an appropriate and mighty show of feeling, as is proper when a father sees his only daughter do his family a great honor.”

“Master Vigg, stand aside, if you please - oh, and that’s eight for you, you bold, mad thing,” Óin told Dís of her own injuries as he worked the needle in and out of her shoulder. “Don’t move now, I want ‘em nice and even.”

Irpa was the first one to reach them who did not bear a snap or a growl from Óin with an order to keep back and let him work in peace. “Oh, my girls!” she crowed, clapping her hands together in almost childish glee. “My girls, I _knew_ you could do it! You were _wonderful._ ”

Óin only chided her when she came close on Dís’s side and kissed her cheek, murmuring, “Your parents would have been so proud.”

Dís thanked her as her cousin instructed the dwarrowdamn to move away, but the words were hollow. It made her a bad daughter, perhaps, but she did not care a fig for their pride. There was only one dwarf whose approval she sought above all others that night. Thorin had yet to emerge from the crowd and with every second that passed she felt some of that initial rush of accomplishment fade and worry rise up to replace it. Was he cross she hadn’t told him? Had she not performed to his standards? Had he even _seen_ the damn dance?

That thought was the worst of all, if she had thrown away all of her devotion and time and planning, for her brother to have been laying down a bet or eating a pie or quaffing ale, if all her work was, in the end, for nothing...

Gróin made short work of her bindings, but his warnings about not moving too fast, not dancing too much, taking care washed over her like water from a spout as she pulled her tunic over her head. She saw Nori off to the side with his mother and brother, looking happier than she’d ever seen him. Gróin half blocked her view, but she definitely saw the top of Dwalin’s head over her cousin’s shoulder. Where Dwalin was, Thorin was sure to follow, so where _was_ he?

Then, Gróin moved aside, revealing the tall, short-bearded figure standing impatiently just behind him. His blue eyes shone too brightly in the torchlight, his limbs were rigid from being forced still as the dwarf struggled to keep his distance. And he was smiling.

When his arms opened, Dís disobeyed all of Gróin’s good advice and threw herself at Thorin, arms around his neck as his own went tight about her waist, holding him close to her. “Oh, my dearest girl,” he murmured, his voice thick. “ _Thank you._ ”

Thorin understood, then. He had seen and he’d understood. Her brother, her king, had done so much for all of them, this seemed almost a paltry offer by comparison, but it was all she could offer.

Dís whispered in his ear, shyly, like a child who wasn’t sure their parents’ thanks for a heartfelt but imperfect gift was genuine, “Did I make you proud?”

Thorin pulled away just enough too lock eyes with her. Their foreheads met and if there was any moment they might have been locked together forever, two souls, two fates always intertwined, this was it.

“Namadith,” he said earnestly. “For seventy-five years, from the day you were born, on this day and for all the days to come know...” Thorin’s voice broke, he swallowed hard, but did not close his eyes or look away from her as he continued. “ _Know_ that you have always made me proud.” The Common Tongue no longer sufficed and it was in the ancient language of their people that Thorin whispered, “ **You are my greatest treasure. I love you beyond words.** "

“ **Mahâzyungi zu, nadad** ,” she whispered back. Thorin kissed her brow and stroked her hair, holding for her a long while as twilight gave way to night. The clamor died down to a low hum when he finally, reluctantly, let her go.

“You _knew_ ,” Thorin said, sensing more than seeing Dwalin standing behind him, looking absurdly pleased with himself. The accusation might have stung more if he managed to stop smiling, but for the first time in his life, Thorin’s temper found itself in a losing battle with his good humor. “You knew all and you didn’t say a word.”

“I’d not say _all_ ,” Dwalin owned, shrugging. “But enough. Got you down here, didn’t I? Told you there was something worth seeing.”

“Truer words never spoken,” Balin agreed, kissing Dís on the cheek, his eyes just as blue and wet as Thorin’s had been. “Very well done.”

This was the first bit of praise she had received that made her color; Balin was nothing if not kind, but his compliments were rare as mithril and just as precious. “Thanks,” Dís said, fidgeting like a first year apprentice who managed to get a fire going without jumping away from the sparks. Turning to Dwalin with bright eyes she asked, “Worth your while?”

He laughed heartily and nodded, “Oh, aye, but then, I had every faith in you. You’re not a lass who does things by halves.”

“Dís!” Víli’s shout preceded him and the dwarf himself skidded to his stop on his knees before her. Holding her own axe aloft, he said, “Honored lady, accept this small token o’me love an’ affection - ”

Bifur was right behind him, cuffing him lightly around the ear. “ **It is for you to _craft_ the gift, beloved young fool** ,” he said, rolling his eyes. “ **Not to return the young lady’s own weapons as token. Up you rise.** ” As Víli clambered to his feet, bright smile not damped in the slightest by the chastisement, Bifur pressed Dís’s hand and informed her honestly, “ **I have never seen the like in all my days and believe I never shall again.** ”

“ **You do me honor, sir,** ” she replied, belying the formality of her words by hugging Bifur and kissing his cheek. “ **I thank you with all my heart**.”

“ **Not all of it, to be sure!** ” Víli begged with a wink. “ **Save, if you would, a small segment for myself.** ”

“I think I can manage a wee one, just for you,” Dís retorted playfully, snatching her axe back. Bofur joined them, then, bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement.

“You lassies scare me,” he announced and Dís and Hervor exchanged matching grins of delight - now _that_ was the best compliment they’d heard all evening! In the distance, closer to the biggest bonfire, the sound of pipes, fiddles and drums drifted up to them. The dancing had begun.

“I’m feeling quite recovered,” Hervor informed the assembled dwarves, linking arms with Dís. “What do you say to a dance, lovey?”

“I’d say aye - ” Dís began, but Víli groaned.

“You’ve just had one!” he pointed out. “I was going to ask - er - that is, I _was_ going to ask. If circumstances was favorable.” Brown eyes sought out Bombur and Thyra, standing at the edge of the assembly, eyeing one another with an air of great apprehension and expectation.

The eyes of the dwarves quickly followed Víli’s gaze and soon the shyest of their number found themselves at the center of a great deal of unwanted attention. Naturally, this did nothing to facilitate conversation between the two who only colored and seemed to find the scuff marks on the toes of their boots terribly interesting. Unable to bear the tension, it was Bifur of all their number who approached Thyra and favored her with a short bow.

“ **I would like to inquire,** ” he began and Bombur’s head shot up, his eyes wide and mouth open in an incredulous ‘O’ of surprise. “ **Whether you might favor me with your second dance of the evening.** ”

“ **It would be the highest pleasure for me to do so,** ” Thyra replied, pretty pink mouth drawn up in a smile like a neatly tied bow. “But I haven’t had a _first_ dance yet.”

“ **So you have not,** ” Bifur agreed, turning to Bombur expectantly. “ **Well?** ”

Screwing up all his courage, Bombur unknotted his tongue, drew himself up and took a deep breath. “Will you...” he began, nearly lost his nerve and regained it again, speaking in a rush that squeezed all the air out of his lungs. “D-do me the honor...ah, Thyra, will you dance with me? Please?”

He hardly had time to raise his right hand before she caught it in her left. “I thought you’d never ask!” she declared and the whistles and shouts of approval that greeted her agreement were just as hearty as those which concluded Dís and Hervor’s sword dance, if not as loud.

Víli clapped his hands together and rubbed them eagerly. “Ah! That’s settled at last!” rounding on Dís, he stood up straight and said, “Now, as I was saying, if m’lady wouldn’t mind - ”

“Begging your pardon,” Thorin cut in sardonically. “But I intended to ask my sister if she’d do me the honor of favoring me with her first dance.”

“That’s funny,” Dís said, linking arms with Thorin and bumping her uninjured shoulder against his. “I was just about to ask my brother the same thing.

Víli didn’t miss a beat. Bowing low before them, he said, “Couldn’t think of a better idea meself! But as to the second dance - ”

“There’s a thought,” Dwalin snapped his fingers as though Víli had just given him a brilliant notion. “How ‘bout it, lass? Care to stomp the boards with me?”

“I should say so!” Dís nodded vigorously, evidently oblivious to the fallen face in front of her. Víli picked it up and assumed his usual expression of good humor.

“Er,” Víli was not about to argue the point with Dwalin; he was an idiot, but he wasn’t stupid. “Can’t imagine a handsomer pairing! But as for the _third_ \- ”

“You can’t deny _me_ , can you, namad?” Nori, the little scoundrel, sneaked in around Víli’s elbow and bowed so low his nose was practically in the dirt - which conveniently put his arse in the air at just the perfect height for kicking, if Víli felt so inclined.

“I could, but I won’t,” Dís reached out and ruffled Nori’s hair as he rose from his stoop. They headed toward the music at that moment, riding along on the great crush of bodies around them, like a wave borne to the shore. With the blunt end of her axe, Dís corralled Víli to her side and asked in would-be-careless manner, “If you’re not full up, would you dance the _fourth_ dance with me, Master Víli? And a great many more afterward, I hope.”

His smile was like the sun. “It’d be an honor,” he replied, his hand over his heart to communicate the utmost sincerity in his reply. “Whenever you’d like. I’m yours for the taking.”

In the end, it mattered not who danced with whom or in what order. The fires blazed hot, warming the chill night air until the dawn began to turn the sky under which the dwarves danced and drank and celebrated rose-red. For the first time in a long while the dwarves of Erebor forgot their troubles and made themselves merry, draining cask after cask of mead. All the meats, pies and sweets vanished from the tables, not a drop or a crumb gone to waste. Money was made and lost at the horse races and gambling tables and the carts that groaned with fanciful toys, bright baubles, beautiful tools, weapons and jewels were bare and empty before the night ended.

Such joy enervated the spirits of exiles of Erebor that if the Broadbeams of the Ered Luin had not seen the transformation themselves, they might not have known them. For many, it was was the first time they had heard the sound of Thorin Oakenshield’s laughter. A richer, heartier sound they could not have imagined and it made his kinfolk smile to hear it. He danced with his sister and with Dwalin and Balin his closest friends and almost-brothers. Maeva begged a dance of him after that and he was not permitted to sit out any of the rest.

None of them were, even Víli who wound up fourth on Dís’s dance card was first on Bofur’s. Bombur danced with Thyra, who left him for Bifur, but the slack was taken up by Víli who was not, as he said, going to lay aside his promise to dance with his young cousin simply because (as he put it), ‘Bombur got himself a lass.’ Nori danced with his brother, to his mother’s delight - or, rather, Irpa _would_ have been delighted had her attention not been much taken up with Óin. His brother would have danced every dance with Hervor, had she been less generous with her time and favors; no matter, Glóin was not an unpopular partner himself, but somehow the pair always managed to find one another every few songs.

They ate too much. They drank far too much. In short, they entered the new year very happily, well-fed, contented and in excellent company, flushed with dance and cheer. Not in their homeland, but in a strange way, they found home nevertheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure the typos are atrocious, it's so late! Also my Khuzdul is probably horrid, but I meant for Dis to say 'I love you, brother,' which is an unexpectedly difficult phrase to find!


	20. Chapter 20

The religious services held on Durin’s Day proper took place at noon; any earlier and it was very likely only the most pious would attend, leaving the temple mostly empty as the dwarves slept off the effects of the previous night’s revelry. 

Balin and Bifur, courteous to the last, volunteered to rouse the younglings from their slumber, relieving Gróin and Maeva of the responsibility they’d shouldered in prior years. The main gates into the mountain remained closed and the streets of the Ered Luin were almost eerily empty, as the sun beamed down on them in the cool, crisp air; winter had come at last. Wrapped in wool coats with scarves looped twice around their necks, Balin and Bifur greeted one another cheerfully, though the former had the dazed look of someone who was not quite sure how they’d gotten out of bed and the latter stifled an enormous yawn behind a mittened fist.

 **“Good morrow,”** Balin inclined his head, scrubbing a hand through the hair that was getting a bit stiff in the chill air; it was wet when he’d left the house. **“Your kinfolk did not hie home with you?”**

 **“Nay,”** Bifur replied smiling knowingly. **“It’s under Thorin’s roof they slept - a shorter distance to tread upon unsteady feet.”**

Balin laughed aloud; Dwalin’s bed was tellingly empty when he woke. No doubt his brother’s legs ceased their wobbling at their cousins’ apartment. It was something Balin himself thought he ought to have done about halfway to their rooms when the street suddenly decided to pitch to the side most unnervingly. He had no intention of relating the particulars of his journey home to his brother, but he did not quite manage to unlace his boots before he fell into bed. Pity, that; the sheets would need a good soak to get the dirt out.

Clasping Bifur’s arm in a friendly manner, Balin inclined his head toward the artisans’ quarter. **”Let’s rouse the troops.”**

He had a key to Thorin and Dís’s home, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The door swung open on its hinges when he pressed down on the latch and Balin squinted into the darkened sitting room with just a trace of alarm tickling the back of his thoughts. How drunk _were_ they that Thorin neglected to lock the door? 

Balin’s eyes were not as quick to adjust to the darkness as Bifur’s. Before he’d taken three steps inside, the younger dwarf threw his arm out to stop him. Gesturing to the floor, Balin saw that he’d nearly tripped over a large bundle of coats crowned with fine golden hair - or, rather, Víli who had wrapped himself in his friends’ shucked-off garments and made himself an impromptu bedroll.

Bifur knelt down and peeled away a few layers to find Víli’s face. Leaning in he whispered something in the young dwarrow’s ear that caused him to groan and mutter, “Jus’ give a feller a minute more, Ma, s’all I’ll ask fer me Name Day.”

 **“Do not insult my father’s sister thus,”** Bifur chuckled. **“Arise, there is much to do.”**

Balin picked his way around the lump on the floor that was Víli, pausing only when he saw that Bofur had gotten himself in an even stranger position than his friend. The lad was propped up between two kitchen chairs in a position that Balin would have called precarious but for the fact that he seemed to be sleeping quite peacefully, his ever-present hat drawn down low over his eyes. Bombur was slumped in Thorin’s usual armchair before the cold hearth, snoring magnificently. 

Leaving Bifur to his kinfolk, Balin’s blue eyes swept the room, but found no one under (or atop) the kitchen table, nor curled up on the hearth rug. There were three accounted for, what of the rest?

Leaving the pantry and the kitchen cupboards for last, he saw the bedroom doors had been left open, and stuck his head in Dís’s room first, unable to stop himself from smiling at the sight that greeted him. She was in her own bed, crammed snugly between her friends, Miss Hervor on the right and Miss Thyra on the left. Curled up at their feet, like a faithful hound in a household of Men, was young Nori.

Their boots and belts were thrown haphazardly about the room, but Balin could hardly cast aspersions on them for that; they’d gotten farther along readying themselves for bed than he had. Dís and Hervor’s circlets were more lovingly tended to; hung over the bedposts, well away from the floor. 

Balin almost hated to wake them, they looked so peaceful, but he had a task to do and never shirked from his duty. Rapping his knuckles on the doorjamb, he saw Nori flinch and then moan, bringing one arm up to cover his eyes. That motion set all the girls to stirring, first Miss Thyra who would have risen had Dís not tightened her hold about her waist and muttered, “ _No_ , you’re the best pillow I ever had.”

Hervor blinked and pulled back the curtains of her tangled hair, eyeing Balin with sleepy suspicion. “Where’d you come from? S’no decent hour to be about.”

“It’s an hour ‘til noon,” Balin informed her pleasantly, watching all of the bed’s occupants shift and lower their heads to the pillows, as though protesting the lateness of the morning would stop time. 

“Up you get,” he said, entering the room and pulling the quilt off of all of them in one swift motion, even as their clumsy hands rose in a vain attempt to snatch it from him. “If you’re quick, I might be kind and make you breakfast.”

“Don’t want to eat anything,” Nori whinged. “ _Ever_ again.”

“Nonsense, you’ll feel better for it,” Balin informed him, giving the dwarfling a sharp jab in the back of the head. “Or I could send you home to your mother on an empty stomach and let you heave your guts up in the streets. The choice is yours.”

“Breakfast sounds good.”

“I thought so,” Balin nodded, watching with satisfaction as eyes were rubbed, jaws were cracked with yawns and his young charges rolled out of bed, bracing themselves on their knees before they chanced rising. Dís and Hervor were of age, it was a fact that could not be denied after last night’s display, but there was some part of Balin that would always think they needed looking after, these Children of Erebor. As long as he lived, he would be perfectly willing to provide that service.

On his way out the door, Balin paused when he saw one stout hand emerge from beneath the bed, dragging behind it, the fine figure of Glóin, sleep-addled with dust in his beard. “Someone say breakfast?” he croaked.

Oh, aye. He’d be looking after these dwarflings until they were nearing their third century - if the Maker so determined that they would live that long. Balin really shouldn’t be surprised. He was still keeping an eye on Dwalin and Thorin both grown and one a king. Naturally, both would scoff at the notion that they needed particular care Balin thought fondly as he poked his head into Thorin’s room, but need it they did all the same. Sometimes, he looked at them and all the years melted away - now, for instance. The sight that greeted him in Thorin’s dark bedchamber warmed his heart to the core.

Dwalin was lying on his back, head lolled to the side, his right cheek resting atop the crown of Thorin’s head. Thorin lay upon his stomach, one arm thrown over Dwalin’s wide chest, his own cheek pillowed upon Dwalin’s shoulder, looking just as they had in another lifetime, as little dwarflings who exhausted themselves at play. Taller, broader, bearded, but the same in essentials, brothers of the heart. They even breathed - and therefore snored - in tandem. If he could have, Balin would have commissioned a portrait taken of the two of them to take out and smile at when the days before them grew dark, but he hadn’t the time and, really, the impulse was a silly one.

Dwalin woke up then. Not that he opened his eyes and sprang out of bed, on the contrary, he rolled over and buried his face in his arm. That little maneuver hadn’t fooled Balin in well over a century and wasn’t going to work today. “Come along, lads,” he said, opening the shutters on the window in Thorin’s room, allowing the sunlight to stream in directly over their faces. “Up you get.”

Thorin grimaced and shifted closer to Dwalin, who took a handful of his friend’s long hair and drew it over his face, shielding his eyes from the glare. “S’not time, is it?” Thorin rumbled, running a hand through his hair and ruining Dwalin’s cover.

“Nearly,” Balin confirmed. “Time enough to rise and greet the morning.”

“Tell the morning to bugger off,” Dwalin grumbled and Thorin made a sleepy noise of agreement beside him. Then, in a startling change of mood, perked right up, eyes darting toward the doorway. “That bacon?”

Indeed, the air was heavy with the smell of cooking meats and the faint sound of fat popping and sizzling in a skillet was just audible. Bifur had gotten ahead of him. “So it would seem,” Balin nodded, but anything else he said was drowned out by the sound and sight of Thorin and Dwalin scrambling over each other and stumbling to the doorway, suddenly awake and alert in order to be the first ones to break their fast.

It was not Bifur, it turned out, who was playing the part of cook. Dori was in his shirtsleeves, holding a basket of eggs and eyeing them dubiously. “How fresh are these?” he asked Thorin suspiciously. 

“Fresh enough,” Thorin replied, snatching the basket away and bringing the eggs over to the fire himself to fry up in the leftover bacon grease; he was not going to miss half his breakfast if Dori felt like being choosy.

“Where did you come from?” Balin asked, amused. 

Dori did not seem particularly inclined to say. “I wasn’t far afield,” was his evasive reply as he turned to head back to the larder to fetch a loaf of bread to toast. The back of his light brown tunic was spotted with snow-white patches of flour which spoke to a night spent curled up upon sacks of grain in the pantry. The one room Balin hadn’t checked. 

A kettle of water was set to boil over the fire and Bombur made himself useful grinding coffee beans with a mortar and pestle. “Where’d those come from?” Dís asked, eyes as wide and wondering as a child who put a tooth under their pillow and woke the next day to find it replaced by a gold piece. “I thought we were all out.”

“Gift of the faerie-folk,” Víli winked, on his feet now and stretching his back to relieve the kinks that came with spending the night asleep on the floor. “Wee little bird said it’s just the thing to cure a rough morning - ”

“You and your birds!” Bofur chortled, looking merrier than the lot of them put together. “I got to know where you learned to speak to ‘em, got some Elf friend o’yours I never met?”

If there was someone who would be inclined to befriend an Elf, it was surely Víli. “Don’t need no Elves,” he told Bofur sagely. “Just got to close your eyes, listen close and - ”

“It’s too early for nonsense,” Nori muttered, dragging himself to the table and pulling up a chair. He promptly folded his arms atop it and lay his head down, falling into a doze with a muttered, “ _Stupid_ things, birds.”

Víli’s enthusiasm was undeterred, he moved right along Nori’s side, ruffled his hair fondly and then _whistled_ sharp and loud right in his ear. The dwarfling jumped a mile. 

“What?” Víli asked, spreading his arms and adopting an expression of total innocence. “Wee little bird!”

 _Eat,_ Bifur signed as he placed a plate of bacon and sausages on the table in front of Nori. The youngest dwarf remembered his manners enough to sloppily sign his thanks before he helped himself to the nearest fat link, grease running down his hands and chin as he bit into it ravenously.

“Careful,” Dori scolded, placing a jar of fig preserves on the table along with a stack of slightly-singed slices of bread. “We shan’t have time to fetch you a clean shirt, you’ll need to wear that to Temple.”

“What are you doing?” Thyra asked Dís, aghast when she saw her friend take two slices of toast, spread them with jam and then stack five slices of bacon and two fried eggs between the layers.

Dís blinked, her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “Eating breakfast?”

“Jam _and_ eggs?” she asked, ducking her head away when Dís thrust the sandwich toward her mouth.

“It’s good!” she insisted. “And quick, go on, have a bite.”

“No, thanks all the same,” she waved the offered food away and fixed herself a plate, keeping her toast well away from her eggs and meat. They ate, some off of plates, some not, some standing, some sitting on the floor - only a very few managed to get chairs, but most declined for fear that if they sat, it was one step closer to lying down and if they lay down they would never rise again. 

Once the breakfast plates were stacked and mugs of coffee drained to the dregs, they took turns washing their faces and plaiting their hair, dusting their coats off as best they could. Due to the warmth of the bonfires the night before, most of their number had not thought to wear layers enough to keep out the morning chill and so Dís and Thorin dug through their clothes presses, managing to find a motley assortment of scarves, cloaks, caps and gloves enough to supply for everyone, even if they did not exactly fit or match. Dori looked the lot of them over critically and shook his head. 

“We make a very poor showing,” he sighed, tugging fruitlessly at the collar of one of Thorin’s old cloaks that dragged upon the floor. 

“But at least we’re showing!” Bofur pointed out brightly, rolling the sleeves of a quilted tunic so they didn’t fall over his fingers. In truth, they looked little worse than the vast majority of the dwarves who plodded from their homes to the temple in the interior of the mountain. It was dark and cool inside, perfect for those dwarrows who still nursed pounding heads and scrubbed at red, itchy eyes. 

All covered their hair with shawls before they entered the Temple proper, a humbling gesture that harkened back to the Seven Fathers and Six Mothers who covered their heads and pleaded with their Maker not to destroy His creation. Their thoughts, however, were not so lofty when they adjusted the customary coverings; Hervor especially was only grateful that her sloppily braided hair would be hidden from view. 

The low hum of preliminary chants made the walls themselves vibrate with a low sound. The walls of the Temple were crafted of smooth, polished marble, unadorned save for the intricate carvings that were shadowed in the light from the torches and flame eternally lit in the center of the room. A _juzrâl_ , her beard unbound and, wearing simple robes, unfurled a scroll and took her place at a podium carved of the same stone as the rest of the hall. 

The cavern was enormous, the high ranking Lords and Ladies of Clan Broadbeam were closest to her on the ground level, along with those most pious dwarves who took themselves to the holy place early. The exiles of Erebor, being late in coming, had to climb the stairs to the third tier of benches were Gróin, Maeva, Irpa and Óin saved them places. 

“Took you long enough,” Óin groused as he moved over to make room and his mother raised an eyebrow at him. 

“I seem to remember neither son of mine found his way home last night,” she remarked, a small smile on her face. Óin spluttered beside her, but she merely reached over and gave his hand a pat. “Hush, dear, say your prayers.” 

It was a tight squeeze, getting everyone in, but they managed it just as the cantor’s voice rang out in the hall and everyone bowed their heads, eyes upon the dancing flame to recite the opening prayers. The peace and tranquility of the sacred space stood in stark contrast to the revelry and chaos of the night before. The mass of bodies were the same, but they stood or sat solemnly, eyes downcast or upraised, faces aglow in the light of a hundred torches in their stone sconces. 

Next week the ashes from the bonfires would cover their faces and their minds would be occupied with the memory of those they had lost. They Day of Remembrance was a time for dwelling on the past; now their thoughts raced forward and as the sacred texts were read aloud and prayers sung and chanted they appealed to their Maker with the voices of their hearts, silently contemplating their hopes and wishes for the new year.

 _Peace and prosperity for my people._

_Good food, good company, good music._

_An easy winter and a quick-coming spring._

_Safe travel for the trading caravans._

_I ask nothing for myself; I need nothing. I offer only my gratitude._

_Let everyone I love be well._

_Tame my brother’s wilder impulses. And if that can’t be done, keep him safe._

_I wish for all of Glóin’s clothes to vanish this instant...no? Well then, health and happiness for everyone._

_Steady work, full bellies, light hearts._

_Look after them when I cannot, keep them in Your care._

_Grant me patience. For whatever comes - good or ill._

_Good fortune._

_Let everyone have everything what they want and if not that, everything they need._

_Happiness for those I hold dear._

_I wish us all to be together next Durin’s Day._

This last was the prayer of a princess in exile, struggling to ignore a headache, shoulders crammed up against her brother on one side and Bofur on the other. The smoke from the fires rose with the heat, she was sweating beneath her clothes and her eyes were stinging, but she could not imagine anywhere else in the world that she would rather be. 

Erebor, perhaps, she supposed. The longing for Erebor was so constant in her life that it was almost habit now, to think on it when she considered herself content and remember that she could not be, not really, not away from home. And yet, she thought, tilting her head and taking in the closed eyes, parted lips and slowly moving lips of her family and friends, gathered close all around her, she could not imagine that the Lonely Mountain, for all its glory, would feel like home if she was not with those she loved best in the world.

And so let them remain at each other's sides. The next Durin’s Day, the one after that, for the rest of her life. Wherever that may be, as long as they were there together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Thanks for reading, you guys, and seeing them through the festival. I thought this was a good place to finish, but don't worry, I'm not done with this group by a long shot. I've already got ideas brewing for what life was like in the Ered Luin when the exiles of Erebor first turned up (chronological order? what is that?), so stay tuned!


End file.
